Is It Far to Zanzibar?

Grimes’s long career in prose and poet­ry exhibits a breath­tak­ing range in tone and style, but gen­er­al­ly focus­es on urban African-Amer­i­can envi­ron­ments. In Is it Far to Zanz­ibar? she ven­tures off the famil­iar urban stage into the exot­ic world of Tan­za­nia. … The tone is as light and refresh­ing as the lus­cious fruit Grimes describes in ‘Many Man­goes’: “Ripe and sweet, juicy meat/A few shillings only for a tasty treat.” There are no deep issues here, just the plea­sure and enlight­en­ment of step­ping into anoth­er life for awhile … But Grimes also wise­ly bridges the cul­tur­al gap … shows how, in some ways, Tan­zan­ian chil­dren are not so very dif­fer­ent from their West­ern cousins … Is it Far to Zanz­ibar? offers a live­ly … peek at the great big world that lies beyond one’s bed­room. (New York Times)