It is a powerful, gripping, and sometimes shocking novel that presents an enlightening glimpse into the lives of all sections of the population in Colonial Kenya fifty years ago.

    Exploring once again the dilemma of the outsider in an alien society, and the gap in understanding between cultures—recurrent themes of Paul Bowles's writings—The Spider's House is dramatic, brutally honest, and shockingly relevant to today's political situation in the Middle East and elsewhere.

    The autobiography of the Duke of Pirajno, who worked for eighteen years as a doctor in Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somaliland.

    building clinics, confounding witch-doctors, driving antique cars over primitive roads, and being general surgeon, obstetrician, opthamologist and every other kind of specialist, was the daily task of this young Australian, who, with his wife and two children, lived in a swelling where only mosquito proof wife served to keep out the assorted inhabitants of the jungle.

    This remarkable king, was a contemporary of Napolean, and his achievements rivalled the Emperor's. For in the space of twelve years, he organized an immense army of skilled and disciplined warriors, conquering and pacifying a territory larger than Europe.