Black Promotion

MANDOA, MANDOA!--Winifred Holtby --Macmillan ($2.50). If civilization could be put in a nutshell, the neat result might well resemble Mandoa, Mandoa! Founded on the Swiftian principle of satiric contrast (Gulliver v. Lilliput)--in this case the white man's burden v. the black man's blessings--this brilliant novel makes mincemeat alike of the noble savage and the noble civilizer. If Authoress Holtby were not so entertaining, her carefully unmoralized tale might cause some well-clothed shudders. Prettily executed and often good for a laugh, Mandoa, Mandoa! may well seem to thoughtful readers a shrewd axe-blow at the roots of an aging tree. Mandoa, an (imaginary') independent country to the west of Abyssinia, was complacently self-sufficient. Small, poor but proud, it was a nominal matriarchate actually ruled by a small male aristocracy, supposedly Christian but actually savage, subsisting on the slave trade. When a U.S. cinema company was stranded for a while on Mandoan territory Mandoans got their first exciting taste of civilization. Old-timers wanted no more of it. but a few progressives, led by smart San Talal, began to dream of modernizing Mandoa. Meantime in London careful young Maurice Durrant, partner in Prince's Tours, Ltd., was carving his career. He heard of Mandoa as a virgin territory for his firm, a "sphere of influence" that might be developed for England. And his ne'er-do-well brother Bill was beginning to prove a hampering embarrassment. Killing two birds, he got Bill sent to Mandoa as agent of Prince's Tours.

Bill buckled to his job like a good one, but he would never have got far had not San Talal been amenable. The two became great pals, plotted busily for a bigger, brighter Mandoa. They built an aerodrome, a hotel, planned an elaborate jamboree like the Abyssinian coronation at Addis Ababa which should put Mandoa on the map. Wily old Ma'buta, leader of the Mandoan conservatives, bided his time, got quickly richer on the bribes San Talal fed him for noninterference. The much-publicized jamboree, culminating in the state marriage of a Mandoan princess to an Abyssinian prince, went off as well as possible, even exceeded expectations when Ma'buta kidnapped a delegation of reformers investigating the slave trade. Maurice went back to England with the credit and Bill's girl, leaving Mandoa to relapse into the waiting hands of old Ma'buta. Bill and San Talal, no longer in power, watched their little beginnings sink into ruin, hopefully expected the day when they could start building them up again.

The Author, though casual readers might not guess it, is a serious League-of-Nations woman; her interest in Africa, based on her work for the League and a six-months' visit in 1926, is more than academic. After her return from Africa to England she made a point of meeting every African visitor she could, says: "At one time our house seemed to be an enquiry bureau to which students from the Gold Coast, Nigeria or Tanganyika came uninvited for help with examination papers in constitutional law. or advice as to where to buy winter woollens." Daughter of a Yorkshire farmer, Authoress Holtby was old enough to serve as a "Waac" (Woman's Army Auxiliary Corps) during the War; afterwards went to Oxford, where she took her M. A. in history at Somerville. An able speaker, a director of Time & Tide, Viscountess Rhondda's weekly, she lives a crowded, busy life in Chelsea, London's intellectual quarter.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.