Literary Fiction · ThoughtfulAn American anthropology student in Botswana pursues a controversial scholar who has founded a village run by women
Mating
by Norman Rush
An American anthropology student follows a controversial man into the Kalahari
The narrator is an unnamed American anthropology graduate student living in Botswana around 1980. She becomes absorbed in a relationship with Nelson Denoon, a controversial American social scientist who has founded an experimental village in the Kalahari Desert, run by women. Her pursuit of him is shaped by feminist ideas and by the unusual setting. Critics describe the book as a mix of adventure and a novel of ideas, centered on how hard it is to be close to someone.
More about this book
Who
An unnamed American graduate student in anthropology, who narrates, and Nelson Denoon, a social scientist.
World
Botswana and the Kalahari Desert, around 1980.
What makes it different
It is a first-person novel of ideas, and it is Rush's first novel.
Feel
Reflective and romantic. It won the 1991 National Book Award for Fiction.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- MatingWikipedia