Kann, Wendy

views updated

Kann, Wendy

PERSONAL:

Born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); married; children: three.

ADDRESSES:

Home—CT.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Casting with a Fragile Thread: A Story of Sisters and Africa (memoir), Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Wendy Kann described her upbringing in Africa, her move to a radically different life in the United States, and her eventual return to her childhood home in the memoir Casting with a Fragile Thread: A Story of Sisters and Africa. Kann was one of three daughters in her family. Her status as a member of the white upper class in Rhodesia (the country now called Zimbabwe) meant that in some ways, her life was one of great privilege. Yet in the 1960s and 1970s, civil war was raging in Rhodesia, and life was brutal and strange for everyone in one way or another. Besides the clash of black citizens against white, Rhodesian society was further stratified by countless other distinctions. As the child of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, both with British roots, the Kann girls struggled to figure out their place in the society. Their parents divorced due to their mother's alcoholism, and their father remarried, then died, leaving them in the care of their stepmother. In 1984, Kann left her war-ravaged birthplace for a comfortable life in the United States; she had met and married an American citizen, and moved to Connecticut. When one of her sisters died in Africa in an automobile accident years later, Kann returned to her birthplace and was struck by many insights about the country and her prior life there.

Reviewing the book for Entertainment Weekly, Tina Jordan found the descriptions of Kann's childhood to be no less than "stunning," while adding that the memoir loses some power when the story shifts to life in the United States. A Publishers Weekly writer recommended Casting with a Fragile Threat as a "fascinating" book. Library Journal reviewer Mary Grace Flaherty called it a "lush and lyrical memoir" that affords not only insights into Africa, but into the United States as well. It is "brave, brutally honest, and highly readable," stated Flaherty.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Kann, Wendy, Casting with a Fragile Thread: A Story of Sisters and Africa, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August 26, 2006, Kristine Huntley, review of Casting with a Fragile Thread, p. 24.

Entertainment Weekly, May 19, 2006, Tina Jordan, review of Casting with a Fragile Thread, p. 80.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2006, review of Casting with a Fragile Thread, p. 171.

Library Journal, April 15, 2006, Mary Grace Flaherty, review of Casting with a Fragile Thread, p. 86.

Publishers Weekly, March 20, 2006, review of Casting with a Fragile Thread, p. 49; March 27, 2006, Betiina Berch, interview with Wendy Kann, p. 68.