Beyond Achebe: Reading the Continent

When he was 20 years old, Abdulrazak Gurnah fled to the UK from Zanzibar when the black population overthrew the ruling Arab government (Gurnah's family was of Arab descent) in 1968.* 19 years later he wrote his first novel at the age of 39. He spent the next three decades writing in relative commercial–though not critical–obscurity. That is, until 2021 when he won the Nobel prize for literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents” "Afterlives" is his latest novel which showcases his expertise in making macro issues, such as colonialism, personal and piercing. Gurnah’s 10th novel spans the timeline from early 1900s east Africa to Tanzanian independence in the early 60s. In it he tells the multi-generational story of several families struggling in an East Africa caught in the middle of a fight between a waning Germany and a desperate teetering British empire.

Exploring themes of colonialism, racism, independence, emigration and love, Gurnah unravels the lives of an abused orphan named Afiya, her brother Ilyas (gone to fight as an askari for the Germans), and a diminutive dreamer turned German Schuztruppe named Hamza. The author’s prowess is apparent as brings these three lives’ intersection into stark relief–leaving the colonial masters’ struggles as background noise. This is the mark of a great book for me–it shifts the attention of the western reader from a default focus on similar western powers and brings it to the personal level of the men and women who own the country and land–the lives that remain in countless generations.

I came across this book through a post on the Arabist's excellent blog--it was entitled A Libyan Novel You Should Read. The author of the post--Ursula Lindsey--wrote such a great opening hook to describe the books' author that I've included it here:

Alessandro Spina was a Syrian Maronite who grew up in Ben Ghazi, was educated and wrote in Italian, and over the course of 40 years penned an extraordinary cycle of novels about the bloody establishment, brief flourishing and troubled aftermath of the Italian colony in Libya.

So a novel by a Catholic Syrian that grew up in Libya, was educated in Italy and wrote in Italian and his work has only recently been translated into English...awesome.

Lindsey also writes a very thorough and lengthy article on Spina: A Stage Across the Sea: An unjustly-neglected Libyan novelist captured the twisted logic of colonialism, past and present.

Confines of the Shadow is the first of a three volume collection that texturizes the history of Libya. The second two volumes have yet to be translated so you will have to wait for the exciting conclusion. The book's translator, Naffis-Sahely, does a really beautiful job with an introduction that captures the labor of love he completed to bring this collection to the Anglophone readers (read the intro here courtesy of google books). Naffis-Sahely also has a great blog/website that is a testament to his talent and breadth of scholarship. Prior to his superb translation (and really re-working/updating of the book), this gem had been largely forgotten.

Now that Spina's work is once again being read--this tome should easily ascend to the top of the reading list for any budding middle east/maghreb/european history scholar/foreign area officer/foreign service officer (hopefully I caught enough categories there).

Perhaps the most incredible part of Confines is its relevance today. Take for instance the comments by one Italian soldier concerning Italy foray into Libya:

Just as a language is only useful in the area in which it is spoken, and is pointless outside of it, so it goes with Europe’s liberal moral values, which don’t extend anywhere south of the Mediterranean. As soon as one reaches the other coastline, one is ordered to do the exact opposite prescribed by God’s commandments: kill, steal, blaspheme … Once the Turkish garrison was defeated and a few key locations on the coast were occupied, we found a vast, obscure country stretching out before us, into which we were afraid to venture. Thus, we cloistered ourselves in the cities while waiting for daylight. Instead, the night is getting deeper, darker, deadlier and teeming with demons.

This is a novel that should have been mandatory reading for all western countries before we even thought about getting involved in the Qaddafi overthrow. And while, Spina's collection did win literary recognition during its time, his keen analysis into the Italian ethos likely did him no favors in winning widespread popularity:

Italy’s obsession with catching up with Europe’s great powers is impeding its culture from recognising the legitimacy of other civilisations. We employ reason merely as an instrument in our attempt to imitate a superior model. We disdain civilisations to the south of us; in fact, it’s as if they embodied exactly what we wanted to escape. We’re a backward country that always keeps its eyes on the other European capitals: Vienna, Paris or London. If Venice had led the Italian unification effort, things might have turned out otherwise, but instead it was led by Piedmont, a lowly vassal of France, and we are the victims of those provincial beginnings. Italian culture seems to atrophy part of our organs. It’s no use trying to educate oneself, or to read books written elsewhere; whatever we do, a congenital mediocrity clings to us like a bad smell.

The genius of these stories is that much of what Spina writes transcends the particularity of the Italian colonial experience in the specific country of Libya:

Generosity cannot overcome our fundamental problem: is our presence here legitimate? What right do we have to interfere in their destinies? Did anyone ask us to bring order to their world? (location 3268)

On my part this is not meant as a commentary on past US/Western involvement in the middle east and north africa, however, these are important questions that should at least be considered and publicly debated within governments and wider society prior to intervention/invasion somewhere. Finally, Spina displays his gift for capturing what it is to be a foreigner in another country as he notes that presence and weapons will never confer acceptance.

 The problem with America is that it makes you dream. 

This may well have been the last unspoken dying sigh of Thula–the protagonist in Pen/Faulkner Award-winning author Mbolo Mbue’s second novel How Beautiful We Were (see my review of her terrific debut novel Behold the Dreamers here). The novel brings the macro story of America’s violent clash with the African continent down to the micro, local level as the reader witnesses the village of Kosawa’s multi-generational struggle with the fictional American oil company Pexton. As the story unfolds, however, it’s clear that the outcome is a foregone conclusion.  If only Ta-Nehisi Coates were present at Kosawa to echo the same warning he gave to his own son in Between the World and Me (see my review here):

“Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.”

Unfortunately for Kosawa, there is no governmental escape valve to protect it from the unquenchable hunger for natural resources. They have a government which neither represents nor protects them. In its place there is only a brutal self-interested dictatorship focused on wealth and power consolidation.  Thus what begins as a violent assault on their land–the violent splitting of ground, the ebullient soiling of rivers becomes a harbinger for the inevitable destruction that is coming for the village and its people. 

Kosawa holds out hope they can resist though, and with the help of a well-meaning NGO are able to send one of their own–Thula–to be educated in the United States.  As Thula’s years in the U.S. pass by, the village tries to resist successive encroachments from Pexton, pinning all of their hope on Thula’s eventual return believing she will return with the knowledge and connections to defeat the hated oil company.  Having studied America’s civil rights movement, Thula eventually returns as a fiery activist who believes she can replicate the same success in her own country.  

But in the end, there is no amount of western education, peaceful protesting, or violent revolution that can stop the hunger for more (it’s notable that only violent attacks provoked any level of progress against Pexton and the corrupt government). The 400 years following Africa’s “discovery” already illustrated the destructive effects of this development (i.e., hunger for more) at the local level, of things falling apart for the Kosawa’s and Thula’s of the continent..  How Beautiful We Were’s power comes in its naked sadness–Mbue is restrained as she refuses to offer a hopeful note about the plight of this fictional country–instead she offers a cold and despairing eulogy: 

“Someday, when you're old, you'll see the the ones who came to kill us and the ones who'll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.”

Looking for book ideas? Check out our 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 reading lists!

For further reading and study:

I first encountered Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi’s writing in 2019 when I read her multiple awards winning debut novel Homegoing (I reviewed it here).  Her latest novel Transcendent Kingdom may not rise to the same level of jaw-dropping narrative arc and grandiose themes but it’s still powerful in its attention to the personal.  

Whereas Homegoing covered multiple generations across the Atlantic (from the slave trade to the present), in Transcendent Kingdom, the author chooses to focus on the life of one brilliant young scientist and her life as a daughter of Ghanaian immigrants who struggles with her identity as a black woman and as the daughter of a mother struggling with depression and sister of a brother battling addiction. Her identity quest is all filtered through her charismatic religious upbringing–which she left behind following her brother’s tragic overdose. To her credit, Gyasi refrains from both Christian and anti-religious stereotypes and treats both sides with a compassionate eye for detail and nuance.  

Key Quotes:

• she chided us for becoming too American, by which she meant we didn’t believe in anything.
• My father’s heart was a lightbulb, dimming with age
• I mean progress in the sense of the natural way in which learning something new requires getting rid of something old

For another excellent Ghanaian writer, check out Taiye Selasi’s 2013 novel Ghana Must Go. She writes beautifully and similarly crafts a tale focused on a mother--in her case, a mother's love--I reviewed it here six years ago. 

Lastly, one of my favorite poems is from Ghanaian poet Atukwei Okai–in “Kperterkple Serenade” he brilliantly captures the spectrum of mixed feelings and longing concerning emmigration to the United States–the last line has stayed with me since I first read it 12 years ago: “America, you’re a funny girl, everybody dreams of kissing you.”

This is of my Reading Around the Continent books--the full list is here.

The title of Damon Galgut’s novel The Promise refers to the Afrikaaner matriarch’s dying wish to leave a small plot of land to their long-suffering black housekeeper Salome. The narrative then revolves around the numerous decades that it actually takes for the family to keep that promise.

Of course one isn’t awarded the Booker prize for penning a surface-level story about a white family in South Africa. Rather Galgut has written a soaring multi-decade exposition on the promise of a post-Apartheid South Africa writ large. It’s a story that encompasses South Africa’s promises to its black and coloured people (click here for further background on the use of the word "coloured" in South Africa), the ANC’s promises to its constituency (one take on those promises here), as well as the psychic overstep of whites deigning to keep promises that never should have been had to be made in the first place. In the latter case, the promise (even when well-intentioned) can become more about the giver than the recipient.

This last idea is less obvious–particularly to a western outsider–but Salome’s son Lukas offers a scathing rebuttal when the Swart family finally makes good on its promise (after three decades):

It is nothing, Lukas says. Smiling again, in that cold, furious way. It’s what you don’t need any more, it’s what you don’t mind throwing away. Your leftovers. That’s what you’re giving my mother, thirty years too late. As good as nothing…It is like that. And still you don’t understand, it’s not yours to give. It already belongs to us. This house, but also the house where you live, and the land it’s standing on. Ours! Not yours to give out as a favour when you’re finished with it. Everything you have, white lady, is already mine. I don’t have to ask.

This is the counterpoint to well-intentioned (sometimes), (mainly white) liberalism, in its classical sense. Lukas has stripped bare the “feel-good” aspects of restorative justice and offered the equivalent of a “thanks for nothing”! His one comment cuts to the heart of why creating a true rainbow nation has proved such a daunting task–with every stripe of the rainbow having differing notions of equality, equity, justice, and staggering levels of economic deprivation–it requires certain stripes to cast aside tightly-held oppressive notions and to embrace the humanity of people they had long ignored. As the late Desmond Tutu once said: “If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”  Of course, closing that psychic space is easier said than done.  America has had (and continues to have) its own struggles with "they" groups--you can read about America's "buffer solution" in my review of Homeland Elegies here.

This is of my Reading Around the Continent books--the full list is here.

Related Reads:

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. An American story of a messed up family.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah.  My short review is here.

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela.  My kindle highlights from it are here.

“I Want You to Know” by Jack Kruse.  A poem I wrote about Nelson Mandela for my daughters.

you are a funny girl…

everybody dreams of kissing you.


Early in the novel, Cameroonian immigrant Jende Jonga takes his newly arrived wife Neni on a walk in New York and as they sit on a bench, he gushes to her: “Columbus Circle is the center of Manhattan. Manhattan is the center of New York. New York is the center of America, and America is the center of the world. So we are sitting in the center of the world, right?”

It’s this tension between the idealized and the realized that the author masterfully explores in the novel as he begins with Jende and Neni on opposite ends of this spectrum. Neni pushes back against her husband’s doe-eyed admiration for a country which she claims undeservedly expects everyone to believe it has the best of everything. Jende’s enthusiasm appears unflappable, though, as he revels in his good fortune as a driver for a Lehman Brothers’ executive named Clark. During an early conversation with his boss, he explains that “Everyone wants to come to America, sir. Everyone. To be in this country, sir. To live in this country. Ah! It is the greatest thing in the world.” In Cameroon, Jende notes, there is no chance for upward mobility--if you are born poor, you will stay poor. He goes on, citing the rising star of Barack Obama as proof of his assertion.

The novel’s power comes in Imbue’s ability to capture both the strengths and the hollowness of the promise of America. The reader sees the rise and good fortune of Jende as his chauffeur position gives him relative wealth and burgeoning opportunities for his family. As his wife enjoys the fruit of this labor her attitude toward America slowly shifts as does her resolve to stay in the country. But her relationship with America is a more nuanced one as she becomes privy to the inner world of the rich when she works for Clark’s wife Cindy during the family’s holiday vacation. 

This book is a perfect example of why reading fiction is important. Reading fiction like this forces the reader to internalize and grapple with historical events in a way that a straightforward history never could. In this case, by personalizing something like the Algerian independence struggle, the reader must reevaluate the dry numbers, facts and statistics littering the historical record and connect them to the actual people and struggles behind them.

"Horseshoes and Hand Grenades" History:
This review might not make a lot of sense if you don’t know some basics of Algerian history so here some “accurate enough” background: over the years, waves of settlers from Europe (Spain, France, Italy, etc.) came to Algeria and stole wide swaths of land from the Arabs and Berbers that lived there. For the purposes of this story (which takes place from 1900 to present day), many of these settlers came in the early 19th century and never returned to Europe. That meant successive generations settled and lived in Algeria and knew nothing else. They built farms, vineyards, lives, and communities as the minority ruling class. These people came to be referred to as pieds-noirs (i.e., black feet). There is some controversy as to the etymological background of the term and you can click the hyperlink in the previous sentence if you want to go down that rabbit-hole.

Eventually, the rising discontent of the Arab and Berber populace (you can read more about the Berber role in all this in my graduate school thesis) at the economic/social/political disparity grew to the point where a War for Independence erupted. There were lots of factors to this tipping point: the end of WWII in which many Algerian Arabs fought, bled and died for France and returned to their lives as third-class citizens; the French loss at Dien Bien Phu, the rising tide of independence spreading across the globe post-WWII, etc. In the end, the FLN (National Liberation Front) waged an 8-year guerilla war for independence that was notable for atrocities on both sides (but with some very brutal tactics by the French overlords--particularly when compared with the France’s far less vehement response to Morocco’s independence ‘struggle’) and which resulted in a free Algeria in 1962. This freedom led to the wholesale de facto expulsion of some 800,000 pieds-noirs to an unprepared France. Most of the 100,000 or so who would remain left in the ensuing decades. There you have it--down and dirty history lesson.

What the Day Owes the Night is one of the saddest love stories you will ever read--in it you’ll witness the stillbirth of a romantic love and the lasting depth of a filial one. Khadra’s novel brings to mind the beautiful writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the melancholy sorrow of Neruda’s “Poem 20”, and the powerful narrative arc of Mahfouz’ The Cairo Trilogy. The height of the story’s narrative comes as the woman who should be the love of Younes’ life indicts him with the damning charge: Have you ever dared? And indeed, Younes’ sorry story is one of impotence as he never has dared and we bear witness to the slow disintegration of his life. In contrast, after centuries of subjugation, Algeria the country awakens and dares wildly, breaking its colonial chains, bloody link by bloody link. It’s in his ability to craft a story through these simultaneously ascending/descending narratives that Khadra displays true literary mastery.

Before going on, the author/pen name “issue” must addressed. Yasmina Khadra is the name you will find on the book cover but the author’s actual name is Mohammed Moulessehoul and he’s a former Algerian army officer. In an effort to circumvent scrutiny and censorship by the Army, he used his wife’s first two names beginning in 1997 (4 years later, he went public with his true identity after resigning from the Algerian military). In interviews he’s noted that he used his wife’s names with her permission and as a way to honor her. The crux of why this is an “issue” is because some in the public can’t imagine that someone who served in the Algerian military could not have helped but to partake in civilian massacres. Or at a minimum, many French critics just can’t accept any literary or cultural contributions from someone who participated in violence--even against terrorist groups. The author is fairly open about the horror and violence he has witnessed in his life and denies any wrongdoing and I haven’t found any credible evidence to support the allegations so for me there is no “issue.” Writing this as an American, I’d say “this is a free country, let people use whatever name they want” but we are talking about an Algerian quasi-exile living in France. You can scroll down to my “Key References” section and find several articles/interviews to learn more about this “controversy.” Now back to the actual book.

There’s a plaintive song that an old destitute barber sings early on in the novel while the young child Younes is still living in the slum of Jeane Jato:

That you are gone?

What will I do now with my hands

Now your body is not here… (53)

These lyrics serve in many ways as a soundtrack for this story. One its face, the lyrics describe Emilie and Younes at different points during their relationship. Emilie consistently searches for Younes “among the living”--searches for his love--to no avail throughout her time in Rio Salado. And in the end it is Younes who is tortured with a life of “dying every day” as the world proclaims that she is indeed gone--vanished, expelled with the pieds-noirs exodus from Algeria.

But on a deeper level the lyrics speak to the larger plight of the pieds-noirs community who find themselves living in a foreign country (i.e., France) following Algerian independence. This is the conundrum Younes’ lifelong pieds-noirs amis wrestle with in the novel’s closing pages: what do they do now with their hands, with their lives, now that her “body”--that is, the Algeria of their youth, is not there. The author’s treatment of the pieds-noirs in addressing these questions is surprisingly empathetic (particularly for an Algerian Arab) and even-handed as he creates complex characters who display a deep primordial love for the birthplace of their great-grandfathers--the land of Algeria. But it’s this very love that blinds them to “how” of the manner by which the countryside of Algeria became the land of their grandfathers. There’s a telling exchange (pgs. 284-7) between Younes and the overbearing quasi-feudal lord cum pieds-noir Jaime Sosa that begins with Sosa lecturing on the mission civilisatrice of his ancestors, “men who came here to a dead place and breathed life into it.” Sosa’s blindness to the blood and tears of the Arabs who did the bulk of the actual work as quasi serfs/slaves (and whose land was stolen) in “breathing life” into the land provokes Younes to perhaps his one act of courage as he responds with a poetic soliloquy that charges “this land does not belong to you. It belongs to that ancient shepherd whose ghost is standing next to you, though you refuse to see it.” It notable that Jaime is wholly unmoved by this and doesn’t bother to even respond to Younes.

Following this conversation we see the acceleration of the Algerian fight for independence, as the Front Liberation Nationale (FLN) steps up its violent campaign against pieds-noirs and equivocating muslims alike--notably Younes tries to straddle the line and finds himself saved from summary execution only by his one-time act of kindness to an arab servant turned rebel. As the FLN victory becomes assured we witness the implementation of le saison de la valise ou le cercueil (i.e., the suitcase or the coffin) with the wholesale exodus of pieds-noirs from Younes’ hometown of Rio Salado--to include Emilie.

Following Algerian independence, the narrative skips forward some thirty years to “present day” as Younes travels to Aix-en-Provence to visit Michel (Emilie’s son) and his old pieds-noirs friends. That the author gaps these thirty years is a profound statement on Younes’ life. This time period, in which Younes marries, has children, and grandchildren is covered in a few throwaway sentences, almost as an afterthought. Because of his inability to act, Younes’ entire outlook has become focused on his mispent past. Younes’ sentimental longing for his los is contrasted with the wider pieds-noirs communities’ own nostalgia--during their reunion his childhood friend Andre points out that “round here we don’t talk about nostalgia, we say nost-Algeria...Algeria still clings to me.” This leads to a discussion on the heavy toll of losing one’s country versus losing one’s friends, and love.

While the author Moulessehoul makes it clear that that there’s no easy answer to this, he does end the novel with a stark statement on the power of filial love, leaving the reader with Younes’ final farewell to his childhood friend Jean-Christophe: “We hug each other hard as once we used to hug our dreams to us, convinced that if we were to relax our grip, even a fraction, they would slip away.”

While this is a powerful sentiment, it stands as a distant second to what Younes gave up in committing the grave offense of not pursuing Emilie when he had the chance(s). In her own final attempt to coax him into action, Emilie implored him that “there is no crime, or shame, in love, except to sacrifice it, even for the best of reasons.” In this statement, the author offers the reader a call to action to pursue love at any cost. Indeed as the story comes to close, we are left to ponder what could have been had Younes followed his Uncle’s admonition: “Only love can make good the misfortunes and evils of the world. And remember this: if a woman loves you, no star is beyond your grasp, no god can touch you. Some of the last words from Younes’ uncle to him before dying...If you want your life to be a small part of eternity...love with all your strength, love as though it is all you know how to do, love enough to make the gods themselves jealous...for it is in love that all ugliness reveals its beauty.”

This is of my Reading Around the Continent books--the full list is here.
Key Quotes:

• Every day these women would gather around the well and spend most of their time turning over the past as you might turn a knife in an old wound. (28) 
• In describing a reknowned musician named Slimane, Younes admires his embodiment of “the greatest of virtues: discernment, a quality that is all but lost today.” (45) 
• I miss your eyes /And I go blind/ Every time you look away/I die a little every day/Searching for you/ In vain among the living/ What does it mean to live this love/ When all the world proclaims/ That you are gone?/ What will I do now with my hands/ Now your body is not here… (53) 
• Her smile was like a benediction, Younes visits his mother after his uncle adopts him. (80) 
• Younes, seeing his failed, stumbling drunk father one last time: A look of such despair that it choked the life out of a noble father’s promises to his son. It was a look such as a man can give only once in his lifetime, since after it there is nothing. (88) 
• For one searing instant, I mistook her for my destiny, Younes’ keen observation as he is seduced by Madame Cazenave--perhaps the great mistake of his life. (163) 
• Younes observing the reaction to the FLN mobilization within the country: We knew Algeria was at war, that a seething anger festered among the people, but the villagers in Rio Salado seemed to care little about this. They built high walls around their happiness; walls with no windows to the outside world. (206) 
• There is no crime, or shame, in love, except to sacrifice it, even for the best of reasons, Emilie to Younes as she makes a final fruitless effort to explain her love to him after Jean-Christophe’s disappearance (242) 
• For a man to think he can fulfill his destiny without a woman is a misunderstanding, a miscalculation; it is recklessness and folly. Certainly a woman is not everything, but everything depends on her. Look around you, look at history, think about the whole world and tell me what man is without woman; what are his promises, his prayers when it is not her praise he sings? A man may be as rich as Croesus, as poor as Job, he may be a slave or a tyrant, but there is no horizon wide enough is woman turns her back...sunset, springtime, the blue of the sea, the stars in the sky...the rest, all the rest, exists simply to adorn her. Younes uncle counsels him to no avail. (249) 
• Only love can make good the misfortunes and evils of the world. And remember this: if a woman loves you, no star is beyond your grasp, no god can touch you. Some of the last words from Younes’ uncle to him before dying. (273) If you want your life to be a small part of eternity...love with all your strength, love as though it is all you know how to do, love enough to make the gods themselves jealous...for it is in love that all ugliness reveals its beauty. The last words of Younes’ uncle. (355) 
• The love of Younes’ life, Emilie, sentences him: Have you ever dared Younes, even once in your life? (308) 
• You took my love for you and strangled it before it could take flight. Just like that...my love for you was dead before it even hit the ground. Emilie after an impotent, much too late attempt by Younes to profess his love. Also hearkens back to his days as a boy catching and selling finches. (309) 
• Pieds-noirs--as though we’ve spent our whole lives trudging through mud, Dede in a letter to Younes from France as he comes to grip with his new reality. (357) 
• The pieds-noirs in France were easily recognized as they “rolled their Rs with relish like stirring couscous.” (358) 
• Pieds-noir Emilie utlimately ends up embracing a fatalistic view on her life as she says in her final words to Younes: Nobody is to blame, Younes, you don’t owe me anything. It’s just the way the world is, and I don’t want that anymore.” And with those last words, my heart broke for these characters, these people who were at once imagined and at the same time echoes of real lives captures by the author in this book. (362) 
• Every generations has its own drugs, Younes comments to Emilie’s son Michel who has just lamented the booming consumerism prevalent in France. (366) 
• Round here we don’t talk about nostalgia, we say nost-Algeria...Algeria still clings to me, childhood pieds-noir friend Andre shares with Younes as they discuss (as old men) the heavy toll of losing one’s country vs. losing one’s friends. (377-8) 
• We hug each other hard as once we used to hug our dreams to us, convinced that if we were to relax our grip, even a fraction, they would slip away. Younes bidding a final farewell to his childhood friend Jean-Christophe. (389) 

Key Takeaways