Africa in My Soul - Memoir of a Childhood Interrupted is a beautifully written true story by Cheryl King Duvall, who was born and raised in a small town in Georgia until the age of eight when her parents prepared to enter service as missionaries in West Africa. In her very personal, humble and honest way, Cheryl's beautifully written memoir describes her fascinating and life altering journey living throughout Nigeria after having left her 15 year old sister, her hero, in the States.
Cheryl describes in vivid detail her parents' numerous transfers from station to station throughout Nigeria and how she and her younger brother and sister were left without a sense of home. Cheryl carries the reader on a fascinating journey throughout her life in boarding school - out of touch hundreds of miles from her parents, and how it led to intense loneliness and abuse; but she contrasts this with the wonderful and exciting summers living as a family traveling across Nigeria, which became a magical land for her. Cheryl writes in a warm and engaging way how she felt love and gained strength from Africa and the Africa people, learning to feel at home with them as she experienced their culture and witnessed their family lives. She also opens herself completely with honesty and grace about how she developed coping mechanisms and disassociations, many of which were dysfunctional, as ways to deal with the pain of the intense loneliness, abuse and challenges growing up in a missionary kid (MK) environment where children were expected to make sacrifices to accommodate their parents' work for the mission. Cheryl's memoir is thought-provoking and deeply moving as she explains how the decisions of parents and other adult caregivers impact and alter the lives of the children for whom they are responsible. She ties her amazing story together beautifully in the touching Epilogue where she brings the reader up to her current life, and how Africa is still in her Soul. Reviews: "Wow! Very, very impressive. So nicely written.
The author's love and compassion for Africa is exciting, new, terrific. Some of the scenes are painfully and fantastically depicted - truly great. The author's love for her family is palpable and all the more painful because it's a counterweight to her loneliness and anger, intensifying them, making the book more powerful for the reader. This one is truly good".
Bernie Schein, Author of Pat Conroy and Our Lifelong Friendship, Famous All Over Town, and If Holden Caulfield Were in My Classroom 