In this vivid, startling work of first-person reportage, Karen Palmer immerses readers in a culture few have ever imagined, exploring the distant West African villages where women accused of practicing witchcraft are cast into remote camps and sentenced to lives of cruel poverty.<P> <P>In <I>Spellbound</I>, Palmer brilliantly recounts the kaleidoscope of experiences that greeted her in the secluded witch camps of northern Ghana, where she found more than 3,000 women and men living as exiles, many sentenced by a ceremony hinging on the death throes of a sacrificed chicken. Initially believing these camps are home to nothing more than human rights abuses and corrupted traditions, Palmer is shaken to discover the depth of the belief in witchcraft and shocked at confessions of violent dreamscapes and mysterious deaths.<P> <P> She introduces readers to a woman desperately trying to rid herself of the witchcraft she blames for helping her kill dozens of people; a woman living in self-imposed exile out of fear that she will use her dark magic to harm her own children; and a savvy businesswoman reduced to nothing when she is exposed as the otherworldly cause of a meningitis outbreak. <P> <P> In search of a better understanding of what fuels these accusations, Palmer travels deeper into Ghana’s grasslands, finding books that catch on fire for no reason and diviners who accurately predict the future. Whether it’s the schoolteacher who believes Africa should use the power of its witches to gain wealth and prestige, or the earnest social worker who champions the rights of the women accused of witchcraft but also trusts a witchdoctor to cure his wife’s health problems, Palmer takes readers inside a hidden side of Ghanaian society and sheds light on the plight of women in a corner of the world rarely seen.