Why read Michel the Giant?

Book cover of Michel the Giant: An African in Greenland

Book description

The gripping true story of one man's ten year expedition from a village in West Africa to the Arctic Circle

WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR

Scorching heat, rich, fertile soil, and treacherous snakes marked the landscape in which Tete-Michel grew up in 1950s Togo, West Africa. When he…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Michel the Giant as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Sam Baldwin

Author

I found this real-life story of a man from Togo, who becomes obsessed with Greenland as a child and spends years working his way up through Africa and Europe to get there, fascinating.

Not only does it dig deeply into the everyday lives of native Greenlanders – dog-sledding, seal shooting, ice fishing, and a surprisingly open attitude towards sex – but we get a double dose of insight because we get to explore the Inuit way of life from an African’s perspective.

It’s a well-written and amusing account of an amazing and rare adventure; I enjoyed it immensely and would…

From Sam's 3 favorite reads in 2023.