Why Chairman of Fools? (Paperback)

In this most recent, powerful work he tells the story, with uncomfortable realism and sensitivity, of Farai Chari, an author and academic, who suffers a gradual mental breakdown. Alienated, physically and emotionally, from his family by the distances of year-long lecturing stints in the United States, Chari lurches drunkenly and amid spiralling paranoia towards the breakdown of everything he knows. The question is raised - is Chari really mad or is this the price of vision, of difference, of sight? Institutionalised in a hospital, Chari is elected chairman of his ward, and his insights and relationships here constitute his finding of understanding and community, even meaning. The 'fools' in the ward are those who see truth, who experience an alternative reality, stripped and essential.