Africa's Embrace - Mark Wentling

Africa's Embrace is author Mark Wentling's fictional account about the adventures of a young man from Kansas who travels to Africa and becomes caught up in a mystical larger-than-life adventure. This well-crafted novel revolves around the main character of "David," who abruptly leaves his home in Kansas in order to follow his destiny in Africa. Upon arrival, he is renamed "Bobovovi" and chosen by the spirit world to ride the "mountain moonbeam" and become "transformed" by an ancient baobab tree. Bobovovi does his best to make his goodwill prevail, but his humanitarian work is fraught with unforeseen, unusual challenges. He moves from one surprising adventure to another, telling an African story unlike any the reader has ever heard before. Africa changes him in unimaginable ways, and those changes are inculcated into the reader and teach a variety of lessons. Although Africa's Embrace is literary fiction, the novel is, in actuality, a thinly-veiled autobiographical account of the author's three years of working in an African village back in the 1970s. The clever and gripping plot of the novel is a powerful, emotional story, combining magical realism with a colorful description of the practical challenges of living and working in Africa. The book introduces a cast of unforgettable characters and forces the reader to enter deep into the heart of Africa, and to consider the spiritual implications of introducing change. Mark Wentling is one of the rare people on Earth who has visited or worked in all fifty-four African countries.