Chilson, Peter 1961-

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CHILSON, Peter 1961-

PERSONAL:

Born July 3, 1961, in Detroit, MI. Education: Syracuse University, B.A. (international relations and journalism), 1984; Pennsylvania State University, M.F.A. (creative writing), 1994.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Moscow, ID. Office—Department of English, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-5020. E-mail—pchilson@mail.wsu.edu

CAREER:

Essayist, journalist, and educator. Peace Corps volunteer, Niger, Africa, 1985-87; Associated Press, freelance reporter, West Africa; High Country News, Paonia, CO, associate editor, 1997-98; Washington State University, Pullman, assistant professor of English, 1998—.

WRITINGS:

Riding the Demon (nonfiction), University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 1999.

Also author of short fiction, essays, and reports for several magazines and newspapers, including the London Daily Telegraph, Audubon, West Africa Magazine, and North American Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

After completing his undergraduate education in 1984, Peter Chilson volunteered for the Peace Corps and spent two years in the West African country of Niger. He then remained for a time in West Africa as a freelance reporter. In 1992 Chilson returned to Niger and traveled that country's rural roads via the notoriously unreliable bush taxi to explore the country and get an insider's view of its society. The result is Riding the Demon, a travel book that depicts the extremely dangerous and superstitious road culture of West Africa.

The book's title comes from the superstitious belief in demons by many of the bush taxi drivers and their passengers as they travel at speeds of up to one hundred miles per hour in the typical Peugeot 504 station wagon. Sometimes filled to the brim with up to ten passengers, these bush taxis are notoriously unreliable and pieced together haphazardly with bald tires, wire, and anything else available that will keep the taxis running. As these pieced-together cars speed down the roads, the drivers and their passengers routinely witness catastrophic accidents—that is, if they're lucky enough not to be in one.

In the book's opening scene, Chilson describes one such accident in which a station wagon and a gasoline tanker collide and leave behind only the charred shells of the vehicles and the remains of the dead passengers. In addition to the harrowing driving and fatal accidents, Chilson also describes how the drivers and their passengers routinely face hostile soldiers who often stop the taxis to collect bribes and harass the drivers and passengers. These soldiers have also been known to rape and kill women passengers. "Little wonder that a fatalistic belief in the 'demons' of the road dominates the drivers—a set of beliefs that also draws in the author, whose own fear is assuaged by amulets and, on occasion, numb withdrawal," commented a contributor to Publishers Weekly. Guided by his bush taxi driver, Issoufou Garba, Chilson spends most of his time in Niger but also makes forays into neighboring Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and the Ivory Coast. For Chilson, the bush taxi and its drivers are a metaphor that represents Africa's struggles for a more stable and prosperous society, and bush cabbie Issoufou enables Chilson to enter a world that few outsiders ever see.

Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Adam Goodheart commented, "There's almost a flavor of science fiction to the scenes Chilson describes, as though he were giving us a glimpse into a twenty-first-century dystopia of mad egoism and hurtling hulks of metal." Goodheart went on to note, "And Chilson's book, as vivid in places as a nightmare, has all the revelatory power of the early explorers' narratives, with their shreds of myth and rumor snatched from the borders of terra incognita." The Publishers Weekly contributor called Riding the Demon a "vivid exploration of road culture." Booklist contributor Joe Collins noted that "Chilson is expert at getting readers to shake their heads in disbelief."