Product Description

Corinne Hofmann falls in love with a Masai warrior while on holiday with her boyfriend in Kenya. After overcoming all sorts of obstacles, she moves into a tiny shack with him and his mother in his village, and spends four years in Kenya. Slowly but surely the dream starts to crumble until she flees back home with her baby daughter born out of the seemingly indestructible love between a white European woman and a Masai. This is a major feature film to be released in the UK 2006.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10783 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-04
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"'I've been completely riveted by it - in fact haven't put it down all morning. What an amazing story!... one of the bravest and most vivid I've read in years and I'm not surprised it's a bestseller' - Deborah Moggach 'Hofmann is a talented writer, describing with unflinching detail the consequences of a passion that combines the element of a holiday romance with troubling fantasies about the noble savage. Gripping' - Joan Smith, Independent 'This extraordinary story is a dashing tale of love and adventure in contemporary Kenya' - Mavis Cheek, Daily Mail Critic's Choice 'A deliciously readable book - it really is possible to gulp it down in one long sitting' - Mail on Sunday 'The White Masai has already sold four million copies in Europe and has now been turned into a big Hollywood film. Theses successes suggest that, in publishing terms at least, Corinne Hofmann has finally struck gold' - Ireland on Sunday 'An extraordinary and unputdownable tale' - Bookseller 'It's a truly riveting read, better than any reality TV show' - Publishing News 'It is the most extraordinary story (as the four million people who have already bought the book in Europe would no doubt agree!)' - Robert Gwyn Palmer (Sunday Telegraph) 'Extraordinary' - Hollywood Reporter"

About the Author
Corinne Hofmann, 45, lives in a villa on Lake Lugano with her teenage daughter. Back from Africa, the sequel to The White Masai, is still riding high on the bestseller lists and the third book, Reunion in Barsaloi, about her return to Kenya where husband and wife are reunited after 14 years, will be launched in Germany this June. Visit www.massai.ch

Customer Reviews

Interesting but such an irritating read
This book is a fascinating biography of one woman's experience of starting a new life in an alien culture. Her story begins when she meets her Masai on holiday and becomes obsessed by him. She leaves her home country Switzerland to become his wife and live in the depths of Kenya.

The back of the book has the quote from the Daily Mail 'dashing tale of love and adventure' and herein lies the fundamental reason as to why this book is so incredibly irritating. Hofman clearly is NOT in love with her masai. Throughout the book she keeps trying to create the impression to the reader that this is love with rather whimsical descriptions and lots of 'My darling husband' scattered generously throughout its pages. However beneath the fluff it is interesting when you look at her core descrptions of him and their relationship. She talks of being a 'breathtakingly beautiful man' 'he looks like a young god'. She later describes ' his sleek body' in detail. Infact at no point in this book are we presented with any evidence that she was 'in love', instead we are left with the impression that this is a holiday romance gone horribly wrong (eventually) and that she is obsessive and to be honest, a bit of a bunny-boiler. The GREATLY over-used description of her Masai as 'my darling' on almost every page left me wanting to extract my own eye balls, on more than one occaision and physically shout at Ms Hofman to 'WAKE UP AND GET A GRIP YOU SILLY WOMAN'.

I could not feel sympathy for her at any point in the book. Towards its end, there is a chapter which details her becoming very unwell and needing a significant stay in hospital for liver problems. She is warned not to eat meat as it will make her ill again but 'sneaks afew pieces' when her Masai comes to visit her and brings her a roasted goat leg. It makes her ill, resulting in a doctor screaming at her that if she didn't want to get better why is she in hospital in the first place. It is another example of her making a bad decision based on emotion rather than common sense. The best bit of this book comes when the doctor screams at her for being so stupid, a feeling echoed by myself for the entire book.

I would recommend this book as it is truely interesting, however it is not a book of one womans bravery, of following her heart and love. It is a story of an impressionable woman following her sex drive and making a life style choice based upon her labido and thats OK as we all make good and bad decisions in life. However the marketing of this book made me expect alot more inspiration and 'depth' from its pages, from this book which is apparently ' steeped in humanity' and a tale Hofman's bravery. Instead I was left with the feeling that I had been somewhat mislead and this is the story of a silly woman who made a rather silly choice.

Refreshing and compelling
In "The White Masai", Corinne Hofmann recounts her story of holidaying in Kenya where she falls head over heals in love with a Masai warrior. Despite the enormous cultural gulf between them, not be mention the lack of a common language, Hofmann, a middle-class Swiss boutique owner, gives up western life, western comfort and western wealth to rejoin her Masai warrior and live his way of life.

The story engenders little sympathy for Hofmann, despite the enormous, and at times life-threatening, challenges she encounters. The lasting impression is one of a naive white women who thinks that her wealth and education, coupled with an all-consuming love for another human, will overcome all eventualities. While one has to admire her tenacity, there is a sense from the very start that the whole adventure is doomed to failure. Hofmann seems to accept the physical hardships of life in a Masai village with admirable disregard. In contrast, her almost total refusal to compromise towards, at times even to acknowledge, the strong social traditions which dominate the life of the Masai, seems cavalier.

The White Masai's strength does not lie in originality: there is little here to distinguish Hofmann's story from those of others who have gone native only to abandon the experiment. The little it offers terms of insight and analysis of the Masai culture or way of life is tantalising but ultimately disappointing and leaves one wishing for more. Hofmann has, surprisingly and disappointingly, decided to share little of her impressions of Kenya more generally. This is a practical book with no airs or graces.

The writing style is journalistic - always punchy and to the point - but lacks the finesse that might have created a more evocative experience for readers. Occasional inconsistencies in the story line are distracting, although it is hard to determine whether these are the result of Hofmann's "stream of consciousness" style, or poor translation from the German in which the book was originally written.

These faults are however quite insignificant in comparison to the pleasure that Hofmann's free and frank style and engaging story engenders. I enjoyed reading The White Masai. It is a brutally honest, vivid, adventure story, infused with romance and humanity. Written with great pace, one seems to move from Mombassa, to Nairobi, to Kenya's rural villages, with an ironic ease given the difficulties that Corinne, her warriors and sundry others encounter on such trips.

Culture clashes
Holiday infatuations are not unusual during visits to distant and "exotic" lands. Unlike the temporary nature of most such affairs, this dramatic story leads the heroine-author to undertake a multi-year voyage of discovery that the reader is privileged to share. Corinne Hoffmann's personal memoir of the years with the "love of her life", is an absorbing read - at some stages almost too amazing to be a true account.

Having fallen for the beautiful Masai warrior, Lketinga, during a holiday in Kenya, Corinne, a successful Swiss business woman, decides to follow her heart. She sells her belongings back home, returns to Kenya and embarks on the adventure of her life. With great frankness she exposes her own naiveté when searching for "her man" who had moved away from the tourist coast, finally tracking him down to his settlement in northern Kenya. There, her lack of awareness of local customs creates more than one drama. She doesn't give up, however, and learns to adjust. Her descriptions of the life among the Samburu tribe in a remote part of Kenya contain insights into the traditional life that they lead. Warmth of feelings and even tenderness develop between her and "Mama" in particular, but also with the closer family and neighbours. Her love to Lketinga does not diminish despite the numerous challenges they are facing as a result of their vastly different backgrounds.

The local diet, malaria, hepatitis and her pregnancy all pose threats to her health and even survival. Several times she visits Switzerland to recoup her strength, but as soon as she leaves Kenya, she yearns to return. To contribute to the basic economic stability of the community, Corinne buys a car that allows her to ferry supplies from the nearest town to the settlement. She even opens a local shop which creates benefits for the family but also results in tensions between her business approach and her husband's tradition and customs. It is hard for her to accept that the cultural differences between her and her husband may jeopardize her continued stay in Kenya. In the end she has to draw painful consequences. Using "a needed vacation" with her daughter as a ruse, she does not to return to Kenya for many years.

With "The White Masai" Hoffmann has written a beautiful and moving portrait of a life committed to bridging vast cultural differences. Her style is very direct, almost intimate. The reader can visualize her life among the Masai, sense her emotional strength and the upheavals that accompany the love between her and "her Masai". Hoffmann returned to Kenya with her daughter after 14 years to meet up with her Kenyan family. [Friederike Knabe]