Barnes and Noble Features Local Author

The Daily Collegian - 4/9/07

Barnes & Noble has selected a book by a local author for its May online book club.

The store will use Kris Holloway's first book, "Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali," in its online book club featuring author-led discussions. Holloway said that during the discussions she will talk about such issues as international service, women's health, children's health, international development and cross-cultural friendship and relations.

Holloway, who currently lives in Northampton, said she wrote "Monique and the Mango Rains" as a memoir about a midwife she met while volunteering with the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa, told through the eyes of a westerner.

The midwife, Monique Dembele, served as the primary healthcare worker for a village of 1,400 people.

"Monique worked in a place where the life-time risk of a woman dying during childbirth or pregnancy is one in 12, one of the highest maternal death rates in the world," said Holloway. "She was completely committed to her work and was delivering these babies safely with no electricity, no running water and no medical equipment," she said.

Monique, who died in 1998 during childbirth, motivated Holloway to tell the world about her.

"I had to find out how this wonderful friend and fabulous midwife could herself die in childbirth with her baby. That was the impetus to write the book," she said.

Holloway said the creation of "Monique and the Mango Rains" lasted five years from start to finish.

"It took two and a half years to get an agent, one year to sell the idea and one year to actually write it. It's like the little engine that could," Holloway explained.

Research for "Monique and the Mango Rains" involved collecting letters, journals, recordings or anything Holloway and her husband John Bidwell gathered during their Peace Corps trip, Holloway said on moniquemangorains.com, the book's Web site. After getting this initial research, Holloway and Bidwell went on a return trip to Mali to visit Monique's clinic and gather her prenatal records and conduct more interviews.

A percentage of the proceeds go towards Cabinet de Soins Monique, or "Clinique Monique" for short - a healthcare clinic for families dedicated to Monique, which began in 2004 by Monique's cousin.

According to moniquemangorains.com, for her next project, Holloway said: "I'd love to do more work in Mali and write about other aspects of the people and of life there. I'd also like to write about other great women who are too humble to write their own stories.

"If I can meet this really fabulous woman and write a book about her, how many other women are out there that we can learn from and get to know?" Holloway said.

Last Thursday night, Holloway read an excerpt from and spoke about "Monique and the Mango Rains" in the Isenberg School of Management building.