Adventures in Teaching and Learning

The Jive Talker is published today (3 July 2008) by Jonathan Cape, Random House.

“one of the funniest books I’ve read in years” – Gary Indiana, author of Do Everything in the Dark and The Schwarzenegger Syndrome

“Samson Kambalu has a beguiling voice, and The Jive Talker delivers the charming and rare story of Kambalu’s coming of age as an artist in Malawi.” – Daniel Bergner, author of In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in West Africa

“Funny, sad, shocking, pacey, bursting with energy and talent.” – Barbara Trapido, author of Temples of Delight and Frankie & Stankie

“… a lively, funny memoir … A pleasure to read, and just the thing to give to a disaffected teenager of a creative bent.” – Kirkus Reviews, New York

“… a wickedly dry memoir … Kambalu’s memoir comprises brief, ironical anecdotes and hilarious cameos of “raving eccentrics” …” – Publishers Weekly

“[Kambalu's] fumbling discovery of girls and pop music, his trials at the ‘Eton of Africa’ Kamuzu Academy and an interlude in South Africa where everyone rips him off, are humorously recounted but poverty and sickness, and above all Aids, add dark textures to Kambalu’s philosophy.” – Metro

“… some cutting observations of life in one of the poorest parts of Africa … The book has a poignancy and an authenticity that are impossible to ignore.” – The Irish Times

“… this is no misery memoir. On the contrary, it is often very funny, as well as original and earnest … the portrait is framed by a thoughtful intelligence that looks far beyond the concerns of adolescence … this riveting, brilliant book” – Susan Williams, The Independent

“This Malawian-born, award-winning conceptual artist uses his background and brilliant mind to craft a truly original book.” – Pride Magazine

“… revealing and touching memoir …” – Perthshire Advertiser

“The Jive Talker story [moves] beyond a mere personal account to make clearer Kambalu’s personal idiom in his life as an artist and make plain some of his ideas in art.” – The Daily Times, Malawi.

“In this ingenious, often seditious, book, Samson Kambalu takes no artistic license, writing with witty and powerful prose. The Jive Talker takes you into a period of African history that has rarely been touched on before.” – Travel Africa Magazine.

“It is an African memoir unlike any other I have read … it is absolutely hilarious … the young Samson, a kind of black Huckleberry Finn, full of courage and appetite … Kambalu relates all this with a child’s pinpoint sense of the absurd … Kambalu’s triumph is to give us a portrait of Africa which for once is multidimensional … this is a book filled with wonder, humour and hope. It is a magnificent achievement.” – Aminatta Forna, The Sunday Telegraph.

“[If] the eyes are the windows of the soul, the voice is the door to the logos. Walk in and take the full guided tour (with stereophonic sound effects) … Life wasn’t an idyll, but it was largely ideal. Read Kambalu, cry, clap your hands.” – Iain Finlayson, The Times.

“Samson has composed a brilliant autobiography. In eloquence and style of presentation, it matches the famous Barack Obama autobiographies … There is fun … I am sure that if the book had been written by a white man, he might have been kinder in his portrayal of Malawi.” – Gedion Nkhata, The Sunday Times, Malawi.

You can read more at The Root Magazine, which published a section from the first chapter to mark Father’s Day. If you have a Barnes and Noble account, you can also read the first 30 pages or so of the American Free Press (Simon & Schuster) edition here.

The Jive Talker is on sale now, and can be ordered from (amongst others) Amazon, Borders and Random House.

Find out more about The Jive Talker and Samson’s work at his Holyballism website.

It will be published in America on 12 August under the title, “The Jive Talker: An Artist’s Genesis”, published by Free Press, a Simon & Schuster imprint.

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