Africa Books

> Andrew Ross' study of the life and work of David Livingstone is a worthy
> contribution to the literary corpus of this great man. Ross makes
> accessible the revealing nuances and context of this giant of the 19th
> century. There is special sensitivity to Livingstone because, like
> Livingstone, Ross is also a Scot and served as a missionary in Africa.
> His impressive knowledge of Africa and its history serve the reader
> well in grappling with both the facts and implications of what
> Livingstone did. His research is thorough and objective, while his
> portrayal is winsome and inspiring. This book is necessary for an
> accurate understanding of Livingstone. Reading it is a delightful
> experience!

This work, featuring many new and nuanced insights, is a wonderfully written story of a very determined missionary and explorer. As the author so ably describes, our modern knowledge of David Livingstone is heavily influenced by the fact that, in death, he has been made the icon for many causes. His legacy has been put to the service of, for instance, British imperial aspirations. But as the author recounts, Livingstone's complexity defies any neat categorization.

Livingstone was possessed of a ferocious curiosity. He was born into a life of poverty, but became both a medical doctor and an ordained minister. He fathered a large family from whom, due to his travels, he was often away. Both his physical endurance, and his capacity to withstand pain were prodigious. His respect and admiration for African cultures was incomprehensible to his contemporaries. Witnessing firsthand the depredations of the slave trade, he devised strategies for development that, had they been heeded, provided a chance for leaving African cultures intact.

Livingstone mapped the unknown interior of Africa. His expeditions were remarkable both in the beauty of the places "discovered", and the grueling physical and consequent emotional demands on the explorers. During Livingstone's final expedition, the American journalist H.M. Stanley so famously "found" Livingstone. The meeting is replete with irony, and the context and effect of this meeting are very movingly described. Very moving, as well, is the story of Livingstone's death in Africa, and the transport, by loyal friends, of his body fifteen hundred miles to the coast.

Read the book, see the film, but if you can go and visit the battlefields in the company of David Rattray and his team.

The guidebook is a well written, easily digested and comprehensive guide to this corner of South Africa, by the author, who is extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject, having lived so close to two of the sites of major engagements, Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift, and who also owns and runs the Fugitives Drift Lodge. For those with only a short time to devote to seeing some of the sites the book is essential reading, the descriptions and directions to the sites being particularly useful. The illustrations and photographs are also useful especially in knowing exactly what one should be looking for at particular sites, in view of the sometimes overgrown and obscure nature of the locations.

The historical facts are well explained, giving the reader a good introduction as to why this conflict came about and on the major players in the campaign. A gripping narrative as to the conduct of each battle makes the book difficult to put down and readers would be advised to start the book earlier in the day rather than later!

Together with the guidebook a battlefield tour in David's company is guaranteed to make the visit come alive, his passion for the land and the Zulu people is obvious, the talks making it feel as if you were there on the day, especially on this 125th anniversary of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift.

It is highly recommended from one who only recently purchased a copy, and was then lucky enough to visit South Africa, all within three weeks.

David Fuller
22 January 2004

I actually brought the book for modern photos and illstrations since I figured that I would never get to see these places in person. However, the book proves to be an excellent reference material as well. Its pretty clear that David Rattray knows his material and how to present them. Combination of great photos (b/w and color), excellent illstrations, maps and well written narrative, this book actually covered all aspects of the Zulu War. There are tons of information packed in this short book. This book appears to be a history book in disguised as a tour guide book. Can't get any closer to South Africa unless you were there already.

This book is very educational! I would say kids of all ages should read this book. This book is about a girl named Thembi who lives with her great-grandmother and parents. Well one day Thembi's mom comes home crying because black South Africans are finally going to get to vote and it it very special because it will be Thembis great-grandmothers first time to vote. At first Thembis parents say her great-grandmother cant go vote because they will have to be at work when she votes so she will have no way of getting there. Also that there will be very long lines and they dont think she can stand for that long. This book has very nice pictures that you should look at even if you havnt read the book! It teaches kids that in some places in our world people are not so lucky like we are, they dont have very much freedom. Also that children should'nt take things for granted and should respect what they have because other kids arent so lucky!

Contemporary authors tackle issues that would've been unheard of, fifty, even thirty years ago. "The Day Gogo Went to Vote" addresses South Africa's emergence from its apartheid past to the present politically-balanced form of government. Taking place in the days prior to the election of Nelson Mandela as its first black president, the book shows how important it is for open and free representation at the polling places.

The wonderful illustrations, coupled with the inspiring characters, make this a fascinating and insightful read. The love shared between the old lady and her grandchild, as well as the respect the community has for the elderly, helps to promote citizenship and family values.

"The Day Gogo Went to Vote" belongs in every library, every school, and, if things were perfect, every home.

I encounter this book in a local library by chance. It is a highly enlightening read. The author merticulously depicts and explicates the cause and subsequent outcome of Spain's phatasmagoric expedition to the North Africa and blood common soldiers had to shed for this political fiasco. Also, how it shaped the mentality of Africanos whose military contribution was crucial for Franco. In addition to that , the author deals with Spanish foreign legion and its disturbing psyche that shaped through years of battle and hardship.

we can roughly paradigmatize the way a small amount of elite troops ,who shares disctictive culture and mores through years of hard fought battle,could topple the goverment and turn the tide of revolution. It happened in Germany by Freikorps and as did in Spain approximately 20 years later.
Was Franco capable to win the war without Africanos? Very doubtful.

Balfour's book advances a strange thesis which he makes compellingly believable by the middle of the text, and from that point afterward, you believe it the way you believe the earth is round. If I oversimplify his argument, it is to state that the Spanish Army of Franco was a rag-tag scatterbrained bunch who might well have lost to the Popular Front during the War of the later 1930s had not they had the chance to hone their martial skills during a horrifying campaign earlier in the century, directly after the First World War, in Northern Africa. As Bob Hope and Bing Crosby sang, "Just like Webster's Dictionary, we're Morocco-bound," and so might have sung the colonial army of 1919-20, when they invaded Morocco with every trick in the book, including mustard gas, itself a pretty new invention.

Africa was a-swarm with colonialization, and much of the continent had already been divided up by competing French and British interests, with a smattering of Dutch privatization and heaping helpings of German outposts. The Spanish may have felt themselves embarrassingly absent from Africa, and the Moroccoan incursion might have been a matter of national pride. However they came bump up against the cunning guerrilla fighters of the Rif, a loose organization of native tribes that, frustratingly for our hermanos, seemed to vanish into air as soon as you attached them, like smoke, only to re-amass under stronger conditions from a higher hill in the sand, the minute you had counted them out for the kill.

I haven't seen much press attention for this intriguing OUP title, which has by the way some very high quality maps that help us to visualize the scene of the crime with the precision of Patricia Cornwell. Maybe some critics have ignored DEADLY EMBRACE due to its pulp title, which might have been by Cornell Woolrich or James Hadley Chase rather than a serious work of history. Specialization is so prevalent in today's history that I expect Balfour has been ignored largely because his focus is on Africa, and confounding the specialists in the Spanish Civil War who have just about myopically concentrated their gaze on Europe, with perhaps a glance at related developments in the USA and Canada.

In a speech before the Organization of American Historians, scholar Jacquelyn Dowd Hall offered a window onto "the long civil rights movement" -- a struggle for human rights, economic and social citizenship, and human dignity that began long before Brown v. Board of Education and continued long after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

In her pathbreaking book, Defying Dixie, professor Glenda Gilmore gives texture and character to the long civil rights movement, using indigenous southern activists, black and white, to give her story shape. These activists, from the fearless and foolhardy Lovett Fort-Whiteman to the brilliant and indomitable Pauli Murray, all faced the demon of American white supremacy and did their best to slay it. They did not always prevail with strategies they dreamed up and pursued, but their vision and dedication bequeathed us a social movement, more expansive than the classic civil rights movement, that still informs drives for justice and equity.

Gilmore's book moves beyond the tired debates of Cold War historiography and the simple hagiography of civil rights heroes to give us a dynamic movement filled with complex characters. In giving these people their due, and rooting them in American soil, Defying Dixie helps us to understand the promise and possibilities of American politics, and to contend with the present in which we live.

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore's DEFYING DIXIE: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919 - 1950 is the history of the civil rights movement from that time until the early 1950s. It gives inside history, interviews and information on how the Civil Rights movement that we are aware of today, came about. In the beginning, the Communist party was deeply involved. Their plan was to get the workers of America - black and white - to fight for better salaries from the companies they worked for. The only way to accomplish that was to get the two groups to work together. Naturally, the South, with its legacy of slavery, wasn't too happy with the mixing of the races. The companies, to keep their profits high, wanted to continue to pay blacks less than they paid whites and the only way to do that was to keep them separate. Many residents of the South didn't want blacks involved in the job market because they felt it would reduce their ability to have those jobs. There were, however, many people, of both races, who were determined that segregation/Jim Crow, would end. They were brave enough to defy the system and as a result, they frequently ended up in jail or worse.

During the Second World War, as Stalin took power, the involvement of the Communist party began to lose its appeal. The House Un-American Activities became concerned and the FBI spied on Communist and suspects. Any contact with a Communist could cause problems. It didn't stop those who were determined to force America to honor what it claimed it went to war for, from pushing their agenda for social and economic equality for all, even though many of them suffered for it.

Gilmore has written a heart rending account that covers history that is either missing or glossed over in our history books. So often we don't know the brutal history that brought us where we are today and Gilmore lets us know in no uncertain terms. Some of the unfair situations that blacks face will break your heart. It is a book every American should read in order to understand where we have come from and where we are going. It should be required reading for both high school and college students.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

A mellifluous rendering of lives stunted by isolation and despair is rare. Yet Anne Landsman deftly accomplishes this in her transfixing debut novel The Devil's Chimney. Set in turn of the century South Africa, Ms. Landsman's narrative shimmers with scenes of windswept agrarian beauty and sizzles with the erotic as she describes passion run amok during the days of apartheid when Coloureds and women were disposable.

Poignantly related by Connie, an older woman who has sought release in alcohol, this is the tale of two women from dissimilar backgrounds. Their commonality, as Ms. Landsman skillfully reveals, is found in the loss of an only child.

With her feckless and abusive husband, Jack, Connie now oversees a dog kennel not far from Canga Caves, the area's major tourist attraction and home of Devil's Chimney, an aperture so narrow that you have to crawl through it on your stomach. Pregnant and afraid of being sent to Magdalena Tehuis, where they give your baby away and "make the girls wear maids' dresses and scrub the floors," Connie married Jack when she was 18. Two months later their child was stillborn, then buried in the yard beneath a lemon tree.

As Connie reflects upon her life, she interweaves the story of Miss Beatrice and Mr. Henry, a well-to-do English couple who came to Oudtshoorn in 1910 to run an ostrich ranch. Although "An ostrich can split you in half with the nail on his big toe," at that time their exquisite feathers - prime whites, tipped whites, spadonas, blacks - brought a high price.

During Mr. Henry's mysterious disappearance into the mountains, Miss Beatrice determines to find out all she can about ostrich farms from Mr. Jacobs, the Jewish owner of a neighboring ranch who is successful enough to be known as the Ostrich King. Society's cruel divisions are underscored as she thinks of meeting him: "Was there garlic in his pockets and a black beard covering his whole face?.......Your neighbors aren't Jews. The Boers are bad enough, and so are the Poor Whites but the Jews."

As Miss Beatrice learns about the care and raising of the valuable birds, we, too, are privy to a lost skill practiced in a culture rife with superstition and medicinal potions. Herding the graceful birds into pens or kraals to be brutally plucked mirrors the narrowly circumscribed lives of Connie and Miss Beatrice, both bound to the veld by time and circumstance.

Eventually, Miss Beatrice and Mr. Jacobs become lovers, lying together in a cave's ebony darkness. She also has a physical relationship with September, her native servant. Thus, when Miss Beatrice discovers she is pregnant she is unsure of the baby's father, and is left to bear the child alone with only Nomsa, September's wife, to assist her.

As Connie recreates the final tragedy in Miss Beatrice's life she does, to a degree, come to terms with the adversity she has endured.

With scenes as clearly drawn as a stereoscope's slide, Ms. Landsman carries readers to the story's tragic culmination. It is perhaps the only finale for lives lost in unchecked physical desire and emotional deprivation.

A native of South Africa, Ms. Landsman writes of her homeland with fluid grace; she describes human foibles with perceptive compassion. The Devil's Chimney is a meritorious debut.

- Gail Cooke

Another impulse buy (despite the convenience of Amazon, the ability to browse the occassional page will forever more keep me loyal to old-fashioned bookshops). South Africa is the scene, and the story of two women gently unfolds, narrated by a middle-aged member of the boer white trash community. She tells the story of a local myth, of a certain english woman who once ran an ostrich farm, way back when whites were whites and blacks were trash, when ostrich feathers were in fashion, when africa was still the dark continent. Its a moving story about the schizoprenia of society, where racial lines were as strong as sexual ones, where women and men had clearly identifiable roles. Our turn-of-the century rule-breaker is a little like the female lead from'the god of small things'. Very much so. Our narrators story also evolves, and the mythical woman takes on a fantastic journey as the personalities of the narrator and narrated get all jumbled up into one raging ball of unspent emotion, frustration, alcoholic stupor, forsaken love, misplaced feelings and confused identities. I'd say this is a good book, although its similarities in many ways to Arundhati Roy's work prevents it from being a great book. There are some disadvantages of being a second, even though its a damn good read, and probably written in parrallel to Roy's.

I wonder why the english speaking world have suddenly fallen head over heels with books about the indian subcontinent - witness the irrational admiration for soap opera's extraordinaire such as 'a suitable boy' and 'a fine balance'. I think africa or latin america, (for that matter) could do with a little more attention, and are equally fascinating.

I thought Elizabeth Hull's research was timely, thorough and informing.
For anyone interested in the effects of Felon Disenfranchisement on mondern day politics, this is a must-read.

HULL DOES IT AGAIN *****

Elizabeth Hull's books have always displayed her natural literary gifts and passion for her subjects (whose life wasn't changed by "Taking Liberties"), but her latest is a work of such scholarly brilliance that I strongly beleive every student interested in politics, government, or even journalism should be required to read it. With the startling statistics Hull uncovers about how many ordinary Americans have lost their constitutional right to vote it is amazing that this hugely relevant issue is given no attention in Congress! "The Disenfrachisement of Ex-Felons" is at times hilarious: (i.e. the Representative from Florida's feeble attempt to ratioanlize hypocritical state laws which ban voting rights for life for petty theft, but not for a single white-collar crime!) The book is at times frightening: ( millions of people, who pay taxes and obey the law, are left without the ability to participate in their governemnt because of minor infractions during their youth.) All in all, the text inspires such a catastrophic force of supreme emotion that readers will feel like they've experinced a mega-rollercoster ride in and out of the depths of modern political debate by the time it comes to its climactic, but magnificent, end. My opinion, the ride is well worth it. *****

As a published and award winning author, I take my hat off to this wonderful woman who has taken such a great film and adapted it so well for children.
However, there is a problem with this singular novelization.
Its short length does present a problem.
The Lion King is an epic film, and needs to be novelized in an epic novel, not some childrens storybook.
What I mean by novelized, is that the story is written down, expanded, and shown in the light that it was originally meant to be. A short childrens "novel" wont cut it unfortunately.
What needs to be done, is a full-length novel needs to be written, along the lines of say the length of Carrie or something of that nature. This would allow the author to expand the universe of the Lion King, explore subplots and motives, really flesh out the characters and have some fun with creating the history of some of our most cherished characters as well as new scenes, locales, and events, making it appeal not only to children, but to the adult and senior audiences as well.
Luckily, this is already in progress. I happen to be working on a manuscript for this novel, and it will be finished sometime in 2006-07. Hopefully, it will restore what the Lion King has lost ( or could not put into a childrens movie or book due to violence, and motivation) and reclaim this epic for a new literary age.

This book is great. When the Lion King came out, I loved it, so I got this book for Christmas. I had my mom read it over and over and when she couldn't, I'd read it myself! This is a terrific book so if you loved the movie, don't miss out on this beautiful adaptation

This book is really the story of a life in Africa - a foreigner's life, and the lives of those he meets and learns from. I couldn't put it down.

A collection of short stories should be like a good record album (okay, a CD; maybe I'm old). The individual stories (or songs) should be successful in their own right, and when you've experienced the whole thing you should feel that every one of them belonged and that the whole is, in itself, also a successful creation. Peter Chilson's first short fiction collection achieves this hoped-for quality and cohesiveness.

The stories themselves are compelling. Set in either West Africa or the northwestern U.S. (as the author's life has been for years), they traffic in culture clash and hard realities, and the prevailing mood is tense and often grim. ("American Food" provides a nicely modulated counterpoint as it serves up some nearly absurdist humor along with the familiar cultural tension.) Chilson's clear, unadorned narrative voice ties the collection together well, bringing to mind George Orwell's aesthetic preference for language that allows the reader to focus on the story rather than the way it is told. And these stories, tough and humane and probing in their exploration of human relationships across a cultural divide, do reward the reader's attention.

This book is a worthy complement to Coetzee's Disgrace. Breytenbach is a writer and poet with a fine delicate sensibility. Not an easy read, the book is nonetheless fascinating, beautiful and horrifying in turn. He meditates on his childhood in the Boland area of the Cape, and the history of his Afrikaans speaking family in the area. He describes the brutality that happened in SA in the past and that happens in present day SA frankly and bluntly. He tells it how it is and and sometimes as I read it my blood just ran cold. He also describes the beauty of the country, the land and its animals, plants and trees, the night sky, the clouds etc. The subject matter is very interesting and the quality of his writing is superb. I have never read anything by this writer before and I was surprised by the brilliance of it. I found it very moving and profound. It is a stunning book.

This book is a worthy complement to Coetzee's Disgrace. Breytenbach is a writer and poet with a fine delicate sensibility. Not an easy read, the book is nonetheless fascinating, beautiful and horrifying in turn. He meditates on his childhood in the Boland area of the Cape, and the history of his Afrikaans speaking family in the area. He describes the brutality that happened in SA in the past and that happens in present day SA frankly and bluntly. He tells it how it is and and sometimes as I read it my blood just ran cold. He also describes the beauty of the country, the land and its animals, plants and trees, the night sky, the clouds etc. The subject matter is very interesting and the quality of his writing is superb. I have never read anything by this writer before and I was surprised by the brilliance of it. I found it very moving and profound. It is a stunning book.