With Naked Foot

Indianapolis/New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Very Good+ in Good dj. (c.1934). First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . (price-clipped) [book is slightly faded at spine, otherwise solid and clean with light age-toning to page edges; jacket has a somewhat jagged rip in spine (with a bit of paper loss, not affecting any text), and is split about halfway down the front fold, with several associated diagonal creases in the top right section of the front panel] Hahn's fourth book and second novel, drawing on her experiences living with a pygmy tribe in the Belgian Congo for two years in the early 1930s. She had previously published "Congo Solo," a nonfiction account of her time there, but here she spins the tale of a native woman, Mawa, and her relationships with four successive white "husbands" (for whom she served as a combination housekeeper and mistress), one of whom is the father of the mixed-race son to whom she is most devoted. Of the four men, it's ironically the one she calls "Mr. Good," an American schoolteacher, who was "worst of all" -- not because he abused her (he didn't), but because he didn't understand her. A modern reader's eyes will need some adjustment for the casual use of the n-word, but in general Miss Hahn stays true to the jacket blurb claim that she presents "not only the white man's angle, but the black woman's, most of all the black woman's," seeing her protagonist "through new eyes, honest, sympathetic and humorous, clouded with neither prejudice nor sentimentalism." Nonetheless, the Kirkus reviewer commented that "many conservative readers will find this study of Mawa and her sex life, not according to their taste." .