Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi (Japin) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi works on us as a novel, thought it makes use of certain documentary devices, letters, journals, etc. There is no conflict here; the diary Kwame sends Kwasi in the days before his suicide is among the book's finest achievemtns. The whole is as seamless in its artistry as it is moving in its emotional investigation.
Times Literary Supplement (UK)


A fascinatingly ambitious first novel...a historically complex, richly empathetic account.... [The book] has an arch, devastating delicacy that conveys its ideas about colonialism with bitter ease....[though] less successful when spelling things out more literally.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Rich and risky.... A less exact and intelligent writer might have made a sermon out of these facts.... A deeply humane book about a spectacularly exotic subject. It has a spaciousness and stamina, and an unforced sense of history.
Michael Pye - New York Times Book Review


A classic tragedy.... This is a true story, fully and humanly imagined, and that is the measure of Japin’s accomplishment.
San Francisco Chronicle


Dutch singer/actor Japin's debut draws on extraordinary real-life material: in 1837 two young Ashanti princes, Kwasi and Kwame, were taken to Holland, ostensibly to receive a European education, but in fact as peons in a cynical exchange between the Ashanti king (Kwame's father) and the still active slave traders. Kwasi tells the strange story as a gentle, peevish old man living on a failed coffee plantation in Java at the turn of the century. He remembers his jungle boyhood with cousin Kwame, the coming of the Dutch traders and his and Kwame's early years as curiosities at a Dutch school. Later embraced by the royal court, the two went on to college and became offbeat figures in Dutch society, struggling to persuade themselves that they had really found a new life. Kwasi, the more adaptable, cherished a passion for a Dutch princess until she married elsewhere for convenience. Kwame, deeply uneasy at his equivocal role, joined the army and was posted back to Africa where, eventually realizing that he was a mere plaything of the Dutch, he killed himself. Only toward the end of his life is Kwasi aware that he, too, has lived in self-deception. Japin tells the tale with imaginative empathy and, in the case of Kwame, truly powerful poetic re-creation. However, his incorporation of text from authentic 19th-century documents is disconcerting. This is an unusual story that could appeal to an appetite for the odd corners of history, but perhaps is too close to history to please the lovers of literary fiction who would at first seem to be its natural readers.
Publishers Weekly


Based on the true story of two young African Ashanti princes sent to Holland in 1837, this first novel by a Dutch actor/opera singer explores in compelling fashion the themes of race, assimilation, and prejudice. Kwame and Kwasi are sent to Holland ostensibly to be educated, but in reality they are pawns in a deal that allowed for the continued surreptitious trade of slaves ("recruits" in treaty terms). Thrust into the totally alien environment of a Dutch boarding school, the two princes prove to be bright, ambitious learners whose status provides entry into the highest levels of society, where they nevertheless find themselves regarded more as curiosities than as equals. The once intimate cousins choose different paths in attempting to deal with their "separateness"; Kwasi tries his best to assimilate, while Kwame is determined to retain and assert his African-ness. Given our increasingly diverse society, this exploration of the difference between tolerance and of acceptance is both evocative and important. An excellent choice for any academic or public library. —David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Library Journal


Quietly moving, Japin's novel is a powerful study of displacement and disillusionment. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist


[A] brilliant first novel, a compact epic of the consequences of European colonization of Africa, written by a Dutch Renaissance man who's also a well-known actor and opera singer. Based on the true story of two African princes, cousins who are uprooted from their Gold Coast Ashanti village and sent to Amsterdam in 1837 to be educated, it's a potent dramatization of culture shock, ethnic injustice, and exploitation—revealed by a narrator who only gradually realizes how much has been taken from him. He's the eponymous Kwasi, who writes the story of his life in 1900 while residing on a coffee plantation in Java, following the last of several token appointments granted him by the Dutch government. Kwasi recalls experiences shared with his cousin Kwame, as beneficiaries of a regime eager to retain its rights to a thriving slave trade. Kwasi consents to"blend in," unlike his troubled cousin, whose determination to"stand out" widens the ever-increasing gap between them. The one "assimilates" perfectly to European culture; the other enters the Dutch colonial army, finally returning to Africa, unable—as he had long feared—to live among his people any longer. Japin crystallizes these conflicts in several stunning scenes: episodes at a boarding school, and later at the Dutch court, where the cousins are alternately welcomed and abused; a painful public speech given by Kwasi, in which he loftily criticizes "the religion, customs, and thinking of my forebears"; a long exchange of letters after the cousins are separated for the last time; and particularly a moment of blinding clarity when Kwasi, examining a daguerreotype of himself, sees both "a white man with a black shadow, and a dark man with a white aura ... [and regretfully concludes that] I have been both these men." As artful and moving an analysis of the tragedy of colonialism as we have seen in many years.
Kirkus Reviews