by GEMMA D’URSO
Corinne Hofmann has made her home in Lugano. Keystone
Thirteen years ago after causing a sensation with her book The White Masai, Corinne Hofmann has returned to the theme of Africa with her new book, Africa, My Passion.
It tells of an arduous but glorious journey, her experiences visiting slums and her daughter’s first meeting with her Masai father.
Hofmann made a name for herself with the bestselling The White Masai, which told the story of her marriage to a Masai warrior, which eventually broke down in 1990.
Visiting Hofmann in her pretty reed house on the slopes of Monte Bré in Italian-speaking Ticino it is clear that Africa is still close to her heart. Her large sitting room with a view over Lake Lugano is full of pictures, furniture and photographs from Africa.
swissinfo.ch: After The White Masai, Back from Africa and Reunion in Barsolai, your fourth book is again focused on Africa. What is it about?
Corinne Hofmann: My latest book is divided into three parts. The first is an account of trekking I did between May and July 2009 in Namibia, the second tells of my travels around slums in Nairobi in Kenya, where I was introduced to humanitarian aid and social projects, and the third, certainly the most moving, is centred on the first meeting between my daughter Napirai – born July 1, 1989 in Wamba in north Kenya from my marriage with Lketinga, a Samburu warrior [Masai tribe] – and her father and his family.
After I had finished my author’s tour of German-speaking Switzerland, Germany and Austria in October 2008 I thought I had closed this [African] chapter of my life. But I couldn’t resist for long. By the end of 2008, after a four-week trip to India, I was longing again for Africa.
I didn’t immediately think about doing a fourth book. But in December 2008, I replied without a moment’s hesitation to an ad in a travel magazine in which a German adventure photographer was looking for an ‘author/companion with a lot of courage and a sense of humour for an expedition on foot with camels to a wild part of the world’.
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