Walking the Bowl
A True Story of Murder and Survival Among the Street Children of Lusaka
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book
An NPR Best Book of the Year
For readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Nothing to Envy, this is a breathtaking real-life story of four street children in contemporary Zambia whose lives are drawn together and forever altered by the mysterious murder of a fellow street child.
Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, Walking the Bowl immerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable characters: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities.
When the dead body of a ten-year-old boy is discovered under a heap of garbage in Lusaka’s largest landfill, a murder investigation quickly heats up due to the influence of the victim’s mother and her far-reaching political connections. The children’s lives become more closely intertwined as each child engages in a desperate bid for survival against forces they could never have imagined.
Gripping and fast-paced, the book exposes the perilous aspects of street life through the eyes of the children who survive, endure and dream there, and what emerges is an ultimately hopeful story about human kindness and how one small good deed, passed on to others, can make a difference in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Children fight to survive on the streets of modern Zambia in this moving narrative nonfiction book. Based on years of work by anthropologist Chris Lockhart and and Daniel Mulilo Chama, a former homeless child turned outreach worker, Walking the Bowl throws us into the true stories of four kids scraping by on the streets of Lusaka. When the body of a 10-year-old boy is found in the city’s landfill, the children’s lives become intertwined—and their struggles intensify. Lockhart and Chama make us feel totally invested in the fates of their lovingly drawn subjects and give us a visceral sense of the unrelenting dangers they face. We found ourselves grateful for the poignant glimmers of hope and compassion amidst the horror, particularly in the camaraderie between these cast-off children, who band together for their own protection. Like Katherine Boo’s Mumbai-set Behind the Beautiful Forevers, this is a deeply important and immersive account of life on the very edge of the margins.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anthropologist Lockhart and social worker Chama frame this transcendent study of the street children of Lusaka, Zambia, around an unlikely murder investigation. Beginning in 2014, the authors and a team of six collaborators immersed themselves in Lusaka's "street culture" in order to "call attention to the growing problem of street children around the world." They document the discovery in Chunga Dump of a boy's mutilated body by Lusabilo, the "quasi leader" of a scavenger crew, who worried that the murder would be pinned on him. The story of Lusabilo's search for the real killers intersects with profiles of other street children, including Timo, an ambitious would-be drug runner; Moonga, an eight-year-old from the countryside who was abandoned in Lusaka's bus station; Kapula, the illegitimate teen daughter of a powerful political figure; and "the Lozi kid," who became Lusabilo's sidekick ("like the Batman and that other guy, the one whose name he could never remember"), despite a language barrier. As the children's backstories and links to the murdered boy emerge, Lockhart and Chama expose the "overwhelming structures and forms of violence" impacting their daily lives, as well as the "small acts of kindness" that gave them hope. Fans of Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Strength in What Remains will flock to this riveting and deeply reported portrait of life on the margins.
