New book plots Chris’s life in Africa
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A NEW book written by Chris McIvor from Wick is being launched in his home town later this week.
In the Old Chief’s Country – My Life in Zimbabwe and Other Places is a sequel to his first book – A Bend in the Nile.
The launch will be held in Wick Library on Friday at 6.30pm when McIvor will present a short background to the book and read some sections before opening up the event to discussion and questions and answers.
"The whole thing should last about one hour and everyone is welcome," said McIvor, who has worked for Save the Children for many years and is currently back in Caithness for a six-week break.
"I have done two launches already – one through the British Council in Mozambique and the second through Save the Children in London.
"I am scheduled to do a book launch in Oxfam in Oxford, and in Waterstones in Inverness later this month."
A Bend in the Nile was a reflection of the author’s time as a teacher in northern Sudan but his latest work is a memoir of his seven years in Zimbabwe in the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.
"It tracks among other things my career as a development worker, my perceptions of the racial, economic, social and political tensions I found in southern Africa and my personal growth and development as a result of the people I met there during that time," McIvor said.
"It is largely written through the people and places I encountered, and tries to present to the reader the real-life characters that influenced me during the time I was resident there.
"In order to understand the contemporary situation in Zimbabwe and the current political, economic and social collapse it is important to understand the historical past.
"I believe my book also presents something of that perspective, so people can better understand why what has happened today actually came about." As well as Zimbabwe, there are chapters on Malawi, Namibia and Lesotho, which were some of the countries he visited during that period. The publication of the book coincides with McIvor making a transition in his career.
"I have been based with Save the Children in southern Africa (Zimbabwe and Mozambique) for the last 15 years," he said.
"But I have been appointed as the new country director for the Save the Children International programme in Egypt and will be based in Cairo.
"I will be taking up the post in July. It is exciting for me to be starting a new challenge and this will bring me back to a region of Africa I know reasonably well, having worked in Morocco, Algeria and northern Sudan."
McIvor revealed that he will shortly be starting his third book, which focuses on his experiences in Morocco and the Caribbean.
"The books I have written and intend to write are trying to make the countries I lived and worked in, and the people I met, more accessible to a UK audience, as well as to help prompt reflections among my readers of their own cultural values and beliefs," he said.
"Engaging with people in other places is rewarding precisely because it allows us to reflect on our values and cultural norms and it is that questioning that I have found most intriguing in my 30 years’ experience working in development in countries that are very different from the one I grew up in."
McIvor, who is 55, was born in Wick and spent the first 18 years of his life in Caithness.
"Both my parents are still resident in the town and every year I come to visit them from whatever part of the globe I am in," he added.
In the Old Chief’s Country – My Life in Zimbabwe and Other Places was published in April by Sandstone Press.
