AFRICAN VISAS by Maria Thomas (Soho...

AFRICAN VISAS by Maria Thomas (Soho Press/Farrar Straus & Giroux: $10.95 ; 242 pp . ) and WHITES by Norman Rush (Vintage: $9; 150 pp . ). Rush, who won the National Book Award for “Mating,” writes about expatriate British civil servants in Botswana who see themselves as strangers in a very strange land: The strain of coping with an alien culture and a hostile climate brings out their worst qualities. “Bruns” pits a naive teacher against a swaggering bully and the local tradition of violence. In “Instruments of Seduction,” a portrait of an idle vamp, Rush unmasks the fear and disdain the Europeans feel toward the native people. His characters are always believable but seldom likable. In contrast, Thomas focuses on American Peace Corps volunteers who see Africa as place to exercise a higher calling. When they fail to transform a primitive society, they regard it as the result of some personal shortcoming. Sarah, the narrator of “The Jiru Road,” longs to embrace African culture, but she lacks the nerve to realize her dream: Her dislike of her plain looks have left her emotionally crippled. The woman in “Makonde Carvers” knows the local artisans are bilking her, but she enjoys the experience too much to stop haggling with them. The exceptional quality of Thomas’ prose leaves the reader regretting her premature death in the air crash that killed Congressman Mickey Leland.