Word: ellello
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Dates: during 1978-1978
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...head turned by the West. At 17, he left his native village to join the French colo nial army. He served in Indochina before Dien Bien Phu and spent the middle '50s studying liberal arts in Wisconsin. Back home, married to a white college sweet heart, Ellelloū rose through the ranks under a French-puppet king and then emerged as the leader of the coup that put him in power...
Small, black and physically unimpressive, Ellelloū can roam his parched land in virtual anonymity, at least when he leaves his silver Mercedes. He is essentially and purposely a faceless character, an ineffectual ruler who cannot symbolize the absolute authority of the old king and does not have the pragmatic instincts of his successors. "Our President," says one, "rules by mystical dissociation of sensibility...
Updike has visited Africa and now uses it as a vast removed stage on which to stretch his audacious talents. His descriptions of Kush indicate he could be one of our finest travel writers. His scenes of Ellelloū and his four wives again demonstrate that he is the master of reproducing the cold exchanges and icy silences of domestic warfare. His control of bizarre episodes-a U.S. AID adviser immolated atop a shipment of Kix Trix Chex Pops, Russian missile experts rollicking like Kievstone Kops, a severed head turned into a Disneyesque talking relic-steers him clear of gratuitous...