Broken English Teacher: ¡Notes From Exile! (Second Addition)
¡Call 911, or a priest! An English teacher (figuratively) gouged out his Third Eye. Blinded (metaphorically), he traveled to the Great Beyond of the Third World, back and there again, in search of spiritual answers or whatever. Herein the journey is chronicled: a near-decade on the edge of civilization, removed of connection, squinting through a vacant (non-literal) eye socket.
Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (First Edition)
Is God dead, as Nietzsche assured us He was?
Call 911, or a priest!
Notes From Exile is a firsthand coming-of-age narrative of a twenty-something discovering (or inventing) purpose in the far-flung corners of the world – or at least getting existentially okay with ambiguity on the topic.
The protagonist, through misshapen lenses, gleans answers, or something approximating answers to life’s ancient riddles.
Herein the reader is treated to:
– a first-hand investigation of the nuanced psychological toll of terrorism in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the mothership of Islamic fundamentalism.
– Alex Jones and his infamous gay frogs are dissected with a fine-tooth comb.
– Cautionary tales of illicit drug use in Third World countries with limited human rights records offer life lessons.
Existential loneliness, the variety of neuroticism peculiar to the Western mind, presents its thorny dilemmas via often-disastrous interactions with Thai ladyboys and PTSD-riddled army vets abroad and Ukrainian punks alike.
Notes From Exile compiles and distills these sometimes-tragic, always-visceral real experiences of the human condition into a quasi-coherent compendium.
About the author
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
