I Was an Elephant Salesman: Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and Milan

A landmark bestseller in Italy, I Was an Elephant Salesman gives a name
and a face to the thousands of anonymous African street vendors in cities across
Europe. Through the voice of a thinly veiled first-person narrator, Pap Khouma
offers us a chilling, intimate, and often ironic glimpse into the life of an illegal
immigrant. Khouma invents a life for himself as an itinerant trader of carved
elephants, small ivories, and other "African" trinkets, struggling to
maintain courage and dignity in the face of despair and humiliation. Constantly on
the run from the authorities, he finds insight into the vicissitudes of law and
politics, the constraints of citizenship, national borders, skin color, and the
often paralyzing difficulties of obtaining basic human needs. His story reveals a
contemporary Europe struggling to come to terms with its multiracial,
multireligious, and multicultural identity.