Professor Emeritus Publishes Historical Novel Based on Personal Experiences in Africa and Years of Research and Teaching

HONOLULU, HI, UNITED STATES, October 21, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The newly released BOTIWA: A Novel of African Resistance vividly portrays the French conquest of Côte d’Ivoire between 1890 and 1910. Through intertwined personal stories and historically grounded detail, the novel examines how colonization, spirituality, and economic transformation reshaped both African and European lives. Rooted in authentic cultural settings and informed by decades of research and field experience. This book represents a balanced exploration of resilience, adaptation, and identity in a changing world.

Chappell’s career combines scholarly inquiry and sustained cultural engagement. After earning his BA in African history and visiting West Africa with a student group, he served as a US Peace Corps teacher in the Ivory Coast, traveled widely in Africa and Europe and earned an MA in African decolonization struggles. Searching for local realities behind Cold War rhetoric, he also lived, taught and traveled in Southeast Asia, exploring from Nepal to Indonesia to Japan, as he pursued interests in comparative philosophy and indigenous cultures These journeys informed his historical imagination. After earning his Ph.D. in Hawai`i, he has taught and researched there, written academic articles on African and Pacific histories (especially on New Caledonia), and published short fiction set in African and other contexts.

BOTIWA centers on the cultural and political struggles experienced as French imperial power expanded inland during the late 19th century. The novel follows multiple intersecting lives: many are composites, such as Kwajo Boka, a Baulé spirit mask dancer and chief; his wife Dibi, a Guro spiritual specialist, his half-brother N'Da who sided with France, and N'Da's father Kanga, a captive who escaped; or Paul Dufond, a French marine who marries locally, and Père Jamais, a missionary, who both become disenchanted by the so-called "civilizing mission." Others are re-presented historical figures, such as Samory Touré the Malinké conqueror, and Marchand the French military careerist. The book treats these characters as complex individuals whose choices reflect difficult moral and practical decisions of the era.

Chappell emphasizes that colonization in the region was not only a series of military confrontations but a broad process that involved economic, religious, and social actors. Coastal African traders, missionary schools, shifting patterns of resource extraction (including gold, palm oil, timber, and natural rubber) to coffee or cocoa plantations, and the complex legal and political ambitions of local elites all shaped how communities responded to European claims. BOTIWA explores these transformations through the voices of its characters — for example, in conversations between Paul and Marchand or between coastal traders like Mensah and their peers — rather than reducing events to simple stereotypes.

The novel illuminates how communities negotiated resistance, collaboration, and survival under new pressures. It combines historical grounding with narrative imagination to make a complex chapter of West African history accessible to a broader readership. BOTIWA contributes to ongoing conversations about lingering colonial legacies and diverse cultural resiliencies. The novel offers readers an insightful, historically-informed portrayal of people navigating a period of sweeping global change.

About David A. Chappell
David A. Chappell is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Hawai‘i, where he specialized in African, Pacific and World history and global colonial and decolonial encounters. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Côte d’Ivoire (1968–70), which taught him to try to understand indigenous "others." That early 'out of the fishbowl' experience has shaped his scholarship and personal encounters across Africa and Asia and also informs BOTIWA's blend of rigorous research with narrative storytelling.

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