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Rejecting
Bonafuerua
Ethan Graste
Bonafuerua is a Haitian witch doctor. He sent long treatises explaining that Moses had
visited Haiti and taught him voodoo. He sent surreal essays about
the religious inexplicability of natural disasters, such as
earthquakes that killed tens of thousands of people at a
time. He wrote obtusely about about
reincarnation and travel to Neptune. All of the work was
handwritten in pencil and elaborately illustrated in the margins and on
the backs of the pages. During the past year we
rejected two
or three submissions from Bonafuerua each month.
So, it was with some surprise that we opened the book review
section of the paper on Sunday and learned that Bonafuerua has found a
reputable publisher for his work. The review of Bonafuerua's
book, Witch Doctor
Worldview,
500 pp., $28.00,
hardback, was sandwiched
between reviews of Noam
Chomsky’s and Al Gore’s new books.
Our defeat was entire when we turned on the television and were enticed
to watch Bonafuerua being interviewed on Public Television during the
upcoming weekend. Wordlessly, with hangdog looks, we hunted
around the office, took the drawings and manuscripts Bonafuerua
sent us, and put them
in acid free plastic sleeves to save them for posterity.
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