In the 1950s, Tete-Michel, then in his teens, was bitten by a snake and cured by the ministrations and wisdom of the priestess of the snake cult, near his village in Togo. The deal his father made with the priestess was that Tete-Michel would be initiated into the cult, requiring him to live with cult(and the snakes) for 7 years, once he was back to normal. While he was convalescing, Tete-Michel read a book about Greenland, from his library-this land far away, with no trees and more importantly, no snakes. He decided he was going to get there and ran away from home. What follows is his decade long adventure traveling from Togo to France, Germany, many other places along the way and finally making it to Greenland, and living with the Inuit people. It's a great travel book, and his experiences are delightfully described. THe clash of cultures aspect is very well described with his acceptance and understanding of different cultures. What I found amazing is his ability to manage in so many utterly diverse places, get by and even work at learning the language. This reissue is very welcome, I would not have heard of it otherwise and that would have been quite a loss.

A fascinating account of a young man from Togo, his growing fascination with the North and his travels around Greenland. We are given an intriguing account of life in Tete-Michel's home village as well as amongst the various peoples he encounters on his travels. A classic in the world of travel literature, highly recommended.

I will buy this book to finish later, as I did not manage to finish this in time - but it is in line with my interests, and I have recommended it widely.

This is the wonderful story of a young dreamer from Africa travelling from the heat of Togo to the chill of the Greenland. Why on earth would you want to do such a thing? Read "Michel the Giant" and you will understand, because it's an amazing tale, written simply yet with incredible impact. The author has a sensitive understanding of human nature and an openness to experience that we could all learn from. Would give it five stars but for the gory details of the sea hunts and how the meat was prepared.

Tété-Michel was born in Togo and it was only by chance he realised such a place as Greenland existed - he used to save up his small amount of working income and pick over the random books a local shop had for sale. One day there was a book featuring the Inuit people of Greenland. One look at the book and he determined he was going to go there (he worked out that he could hunt, they hunted, so he'd be OK) and so he waited till he was grown up enough, ran away from home and worked his way to disembarkation from Denmark EIGHT YEARS later. In that time he lived with various benefactors, including one French man who became his surrogate father, showing a remarkable resilience and ability to work, make friends and learn languages which was to stand him in good stead.

What I was expecting from the book, and found in it, was a lot of really gruesome stuff around the lifestyle of the Greenlanders - hunting, eating all sorts of things one really wouldn't fancy eating, accidents and incidents, quite a few needing me to cover my Kindle as I hastily flicked the pages. But it's 1960s Greenland seen through the eyes of a hunter from Africa who wants to live as the Greenlanders do, so I'm not sure it's something one can complain about as such. I was also expecting him to stand out a bit, and that he did, with people mentioning they'd read about him in the paper and waited a year to meet him, etc. I was expecting some carousing and partying as I've read before about the use of alcohol in Greenland (this seemed to surprise Tété-Michel, coming from a culture where alcohol was eked out on ceremonial occasions) than it did me. I was a bit surprised about all the sex that went on, swapping partners and being offered other men's wives; but then he's a red-blooded man in his mid-20s and the culture is there, so again not something I can criticise (he does offer a critique, explaining his own jealousy but also how the serious partner-swapping between married couples does cement society and put in safeguards in a place where people die young and accidents are common).

Full review on my blog published 7 April: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2022/04/07/book-review-tete-michel-kpomassie-michel-the-giant-formerly-an-african-in-greenland/

The author's story is so enthralling that it is almost unbelievable and the entire book was absolutely fascinating. I don't even know how to properly describe this book or explain why it's so captivating -- I can just wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who might be reading this review.

Kpomassie's experience feels almost modern at times, and it was hard to remember that some of these things happened in the 1960s. His perspective as a non-European traveler throughout Africa, continental Europe, and Greenland was so unique and relevant, and I appreciate how frequently he acknowledged his own biases and struggles to understand other cultures and their customs. Even though his story was told in the first person, I didn't feel like he had an "agenda" he wanted to communicate outside of explaining his experiences and what he learned from them -- it was extremely refreshing.

This was a fascinating account of life, first briefly in Africa, and then the writer's experiences in Greenland (after an interesting journey from Africa to Greenland). The author writes in detail about many aspects of life in Greenland as he traveled from one place to another. His experiences in each community were different as he befriended and lived with several different families. The way he described the culture, the food and the adaptations to the harsh weather conditions was really detailed and I learnt so much about a country that I knew so little about. There were some unusual tales and some shocking tales, but mostly it's a great memoir to the people he met and the people who took him in.