Best of
Africa

1992

"Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide


Sven Lindqvist - 1992
    Using Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as his point of departure, Sven Lindqvist takes us on a haunting tour through the colonial past, interwoven with a modern-day travelogue. Retracing the steps of European explorers, missionaries, politicians, and historians in Africa from the late eighteenth century onward, the author exposes the roots of genocide in Africa via his own journey through the Saharan desert. As Lindqvist shows, fantasies not merely of white superiority but of actual extermination--"cleansing" the earth of the so-called lesser races--deeply informed European colonialism and racist ideology that ultimately culminated in Europe's own Holocaust.Chosen as one of the Best Books of 1998 by the New Internationalist, which called it "a beautifully written integration of criticism, cultural history, and travel writing, underpinned by a passion for social justice," "Exterminate All the Brutes" is a powerful reckoning with the past and an indispensable contribution to the literature of colonial Africa and European genocide.

The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness


Delia Owens - 1992
    They found it in Zambia, but elephant poachers soon had them fighting for their lives when they tried to stop the slaughter. 16 pages of photos, half in color.

Sleepwalking Land


Mia Couto - 1992
    Among the effects of a dead passenger, they come across a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, this story and their own develop in tandem. Written in 1992, Mia Couto’s first novel is a powerful indictment of the suffering war brings.

The African Adventurers: A Return to the Silent Places


Peter Hathaway Capstick - 1992
    Only Capstick "can write action as cleanly and suspensefully as the best of his predecessors" (Sports Illustrated). This long-awaited sequel to Death in the Silent Places (1981) brings to life four turn-of-the-century adventurers and the savage frontiers they braved.* Frederick Selous, a British hunter, naturalist, and soldier, rewrote the history books with his fearless treks deep into the Dark Continent.* English game ranger Constantine "Iodine" Ionides saved Tanganyikan villages from man-eating lions and leopards. He also gained lasting fame for his uncanny ability to capture black mambas, cobras, Gaboon vipers, and other deadly snakes.* The dashing Brit Johnny Boyes who gained the chieftainship of the Kikuyu tribe with sheer bravado and survived the ferocious battles and ambushes of intertribal warfare.* And Scottish ex-boxer, Jim Sutherland, one of the best ivory hunters who ever lived. His tracking skills and stamina afoot became the stuff of African hunting legend.If you are a Capstick fan, you'll relish The African Adventurers, his eleventh book. Once again he delivers "the kind of chilling stories that Hemingway only heard second-hand...with a flair and style that Papa himself would admire" (Guns and Ammo). The author's pungent wit and his authenticity gained from years in the bush make this quartet of vintage heroics an unforgettable return to the silent places.

The Aye-Aye and I


Gerald Durrell - 1992
    Once thought to be extinct, the Aye-aye, the beast with the magic finger, still lurks, though in fast dwindling numbers, in the forests of Madagascar. Durrell's mission to help save this strange creature turns into a madcap journey in which you will meet not only the enigmatic Aye-aye, but the catlike Fosa, the Flat-tailed tortoise, the Gentle lemurs of Lac Alaotra, and the Malagasy chameleons, among others. Truly nothing escapes Durrell's sharp eye, whether he is describing the great zoma (market), the village dances, the treacherous bridges and river crossings, the strange foods and stranger music, or the vagaries of local officialdom. As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, It is impossible for Gerald Durrell to write anything that is less than exuberant, eccentric, and amusing. And in his account of this rescue mission, Durrell is, quite simply, at his superb best.

Daughters of Africa


Margaret BusbyMakeda - 1992
    A monumental literary enterprise, it is the most inclusive anthology ever attempted of oral and written literature--in every conceivable genre--by women of African descent the world over. (Pantheon)List of Contributors Continued:Dorothy West, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Ellen Kuzwayo, Billie Holiday, Claudia Jones, Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Caroline Ntseliseng Khaketla, Aída Cartagena Portalatín, Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley, Alice Childress

Understanding Black Adolescent Male Violence: Its Remediation and Prevention (Awis Lecture Series)


Amos N. Wilson - 1992
    Wilson, author of Black-on-Black Violence.

Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa's Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People


Noel Mostert - 1992
    In a comparatively small area of land, eastwards from the Cape, on territory demarcated by the Great Fish and the Great Kai Rivers. It was here that the crucial frontier was variously to be found - the volatile border where colonial expansion met local intransigence and brutal warfare proved the only solution to the impasse. Noel Mostert vivdly recounts this momentous story and its appalling aftermath - the self-immolation of the Xhosa. His starting point is the arrival of the first visitors to the Cape, the Portugeuse, in 1492. In an epilogue he observes that the end of the wars did not mean the end of the agony, but rather a legacy of pain and anger that to this day shapes South African society.

Zomo the Rabbit: A Trickster Tale from West Africa


Gerald McDermott - 1992
    But he must accomplish three apparently impossible tasks before Sky God will give him what he wants. Is he clever enough to do as Sky God asks? “The tale moves along with the swift concision of a good joke, right down to its satisfying punch line.”--Publishers Weekly “Wildly exuberant, full of slapstick and mischief, this version of an enduring Nigerian trickster tale, featuring a clever rabbit, is a storyteller’s delight.”--Booklist

Native Stranger: A Black American's Journey into the Heart of Africa (Vintage Departures)


Eddy L. Harris - 1992
    Reprint.

Masai and I


Virginia L. Kroll - 1992
    In school one day, a little girl named Linda learns about East Africa and a tall, proud people called the Masai "If I were a Masai"' Linda wonders, "would I live in an apartment building the way I do now? Would I have a pet hamster of a new pair of sneakers? What would my family be like if I were Masai?"Linda's observations celebrate things that are different and theings that are the same, as her imagination opens the door to a place where Masai might be I, and I, Masai.

Cemetery of Mind


Dambudzo Marechera - 1992
    However, many people feel that Marechera's real talent was as a writer of poetry. Cemetery of Mind is the first comprehensive collection of his poems, compiled with notes by his biographer, Flora Veit-Wild. The volume contains more than 140 poems, many of which were retrieved after his death and were previously unpublished. It also includes an interview with Marechera on poetry.

Yemoja/Olokun: Ifa & the Spirit of the Ocean


Awo Falokun Fatunmbi - 1992
    Those Spiritual Forces that form the foundation of Yemoja and Olokun's role in the Spirit Realm relate to the relationship between water and birth.

D.G.G. Berry's The Great North Road


John Eppel - 1992
    Berry's The Great North Road, John Eppel's first novel, is an immensely funny satire of a white working class community, stretching in time from the late-1950s Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia, to the early-1980s Zimbabwe. It is a story of people, in the main, who cannot be relied upon. When Rose Hadi is run over on the Great North Road, something much more than a 12 year old girl begins to decompose. Behind the masks of chauvinism and fundamentalism, persists a zany, larger-than-life world of haemorrhoids, milk stouts, tokoloshes, and powder-blue safari suits through which Duiker Berry, Eppel's nostalgia-ridden 'hero', wanders. At least, ostensibly, that's the story. And, come to think of it, is it even Eppel's novel? And, who exactly can the reader trust?

Ngorongoro


Reinhard Kunkel - 1992
    Over the millennia the crater became a national park for wildlife. Herbivores followed vegetation to the Ngorongoro and predators followed herbivores. Men followed, too, hunting for the tusks of rhinos and elephants, and the coats of the zebra. Rangers, photographers, and anthropologists came, too, to the place that many call the Garden of Eden. Reinhard Kunkel's beautiful, often astonishing, sometimes startling images, alongside landscapes of a primeval grandeur, make this book a triumph of wildlife photography. Reinhard Kunkel has been photographing there since 1973. He has lived with and shot the land and the animals - the lions, elephants, eagles, buffalo and hippopotamuses -- for the last thirty years. He has shot them mating, raising their young, killing their prey. He has watched herds of buffalo charge and scatter lions, followed the egrets searching for insects in the steps of the rhinos, stayed up nights waiting for the female rhino to accept the advances of the male, observed jackals and vultures staring each other down in confrontation over a kill, and the flamingoes feasting on the abundant blue-green algae. Unrivalled in the richness and diversity of its animal and plant life, Ngorongoro has been called the eighth wonder of the world.The original edition of this book was published in the United States in 1992. Updated with new photographs and extended by a new 16-page signature on the Maasai, it is an unrivalled work of design and production. Limited to 5,000 copies world wide.

Major Gentl and the Achimota Wars


Kojo Laing - 1992
    Gentl's favourite snakes serve as bodyguards against Torro's antics; Torro is protected by his own sadistic rats - he has two lives left, but is weakened by Gentl's patience. As these two prepare for the final conflict which will determine the fate of Achimota, the children of the land take up their own battle.In this provocative, witty, part-surreal novel, Kojo Laing's futuristic world has real possibilities.

Murder Abroad: Death in Berlin, Death in Cyprus, Death in Kenya


M.M. Kaye - 1992
    Death in Kenya: Although the Mau Mau terrorist uprising is now over, when Victoria Caryll joins her family in ther beautiful Rift Valley estate, she finds the horrors continue.

Echo of the Elephants: The Story of an Elephant Family


Cynthia Moss - 1992
    TV tie-in. 35,000 first printing.

A Complete Guide to the Snakes of Southern Africa


Johan Marais - 1992
    Now in its second edition, A Complete Guide to the Snakes of Southern Africa has been updated, revised and expanded to include at least 11 newly discovered and 30 re-classified species and sub-species. New information based on international scientific research has been included in the species accounts relating to behavior, identification, reproduction and snake venom. This readable and user-friendly guide will be invaluable to herpetologists, snake collectors, hikers, gardeners, campers and householders, or anyone who may encounter or want to know more about these fascinating and widely misunderstood reptiles.

The White Rhino Hotel


Bartle Bull - 1992
    The Great War has ended, tragically for many, but for some, Africa holds the prospect of vast estates, fabulous wealth, and limitless opportunity in this powerful, wonderfully crafted novel of the natural and human perils that await pioneers in a promised land. In colonial Kenya the paths of these new settlers cross at Lord Penfold's White Rhino Hotel. Here they meet the cunning dwarf Olivio Alevado, a man whose lustful desires and vengeful schemes make him a formidable adversary to his enemies and a subtle ally to his friends. Here the destinies of the gypsy adventurer Anton Rider and courageous, war-hardened Gwen Llewelyn intersect. Here hope is corrupted by greed, love by revenge, and loyalty by betrayal as the future is trampled into history. "A wing-ding adventure story.... The kind of book that creates one of the elemental delights of fiction - a complete other world where, unlike our own, all the parts add up to something." - Boston Globe; "A genuine epic centered in Africa, by a writer who knows how to write, who knows his terrain intimately, who knows how to paint his characters convincingly, and who knows how to spin a good yarn." - Forbes Magazine.

A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique


William Finnegan - 1992
    Before going to Mozambique, William Finnegan saw the war, like so many foreign observers, through a South African lens, viewing the conflict as apartheid's "forward defense." This lens was shattered by what he witnessed and what he heard from Mozambicans, especially those who had lived with the bandidos armado, the "armed bandits" otherwise known as the Renamo rebels. The shifting, wrenching, ground-level stories that people told combine to form an account of the war more local and nuanced, more complex, more African—than anything that has been politically convenient to describe.A Complicated War combines frontline reporting, personal narrative, political analysis, and comparative scholarship to present a picture of a Mozambique harrowed by profound local conflicts—ethnic, religious, political and personal. Finnegan writes that South Africa's domination and destabilization are basic elements of Mozambique's plight, but he offers a subtle description and analysis that will allow us to see the post-apartheid region from a new, more realistic, if less comfortable, point of view.

Battle for the Elephants


Oria Douglas-Hamilton - 1992
    25,000 first printing.

Tramp Royal: The True Story of Trader Horn


Tim Couzens - 1992
    Popular though the book was, it did not take long before the veracity of Lewis's tale about Trader Horn was being called into question by many who believed the work was fiction, or a hoax. In "Tramp Royal", by means of a piece of biographical detective work, Tim Couzens picks up the fading trail of Aloysius Smith, alias Trader Horn, from Lancashire in the 1860s, through the frontiers of Africa, Buffalo Bill's America, Cockney London in the 1890s, gunrunning in Madagascar, the Boer War in South Africa to the doss house in Johannesburg. It is the tale of an unquenchable free spirit forever in search of adventure and Couzens tells it with a verve and enjoyment entirely appropriate to the larger-than-life character he celebrates.

Love in Black and White: The Triumph of Love Over Predjudice and Taboo


Mark Mathabane - 1992
    16 pages of photos.

An African Elegy


Ben Okri - 1992
    Okri's dreams are made on the stuff of Africa's colossal economic and political problems, and reading the poems is to experience a constant succession of metaphors of resolution in both senses of the word. Virtually every poem contains an exhortation to climb out of the African miasma, and virtually every poem harvests the dream of itself with an upbeat restorative ending' - Giles Foden, Times Literary Supplement

The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition, and the Church in Africa


Mercy Amba Oduyoye - 1992
    The first two parts of the book describe the role of women in terms of culture, rites of passage, and daily life. Attitudes toward birthing and naming, marriage and widowhood, polygamy, prostitution, and death are all explored. The third part focuses on the church, reviewing biblical attitudes toward women, and showing how African women can and should contribute to the life of the Christian church. Contributors: Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro - Mercy Amba Oduyoye - Rosemary N. Edet - Anne Nasimiyu-Wasike - Daisy N. Nwachuku - Rabiatu Ammah - Judith Mbula Bahemuka - Lloyda Fanusie - Bernadette Mbuy Beya - Teresa M. Hinga - Anne Nachisale Musopole - R. Modupe Owanikin - Teresa Okure

Kingdom of Lions


Jonathan Scott - 1992
    It also follows the fortunes of the other animals who share this land - the once-elusive leopard, the wild dogs (badly hit by disease and now seriously endangered), and the solitary cheetah, whose life is a constant battle against more powerful predators. But though the Mara is a protected wilderness, it is surrounded by people. The book tells of the Maasai pastoralists, struggling to preserve their culture and the right to their land, the threat of poaching, and the impact that tourism has on this beautiful wildlife sanctuary.

In the Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa


Said S. Samatar - 1992
    An important historical work, detailing how African Muslims reacted to the challenge of European colonial intervention.

Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa


John M. Janzen - 1992
    A widespread form of ritual healing in Central and Southern Africa, ngoma is fully investigated here for the first time and interpreted in a contemporary context. John Janzen's daring study incorporates drumming and spirit possession into a broader, institutional profile that emphasizes the varieties of knowledge and social forms and also the common elements of "doing ngoma."Drawing on his recent field research in Kinshasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Mbabane, and Capetown, Janzen reveals how ngoma transcends national and social boundaries. Spoken and sung discourses about affliction, extended counseling, reorientation of the self or household, and the creation of networks that link the afflicted, their kin, and their healers are all central to ngoma—and familiar to Western self-help institutions as well. Students of African healing and also those interested in the comparative and historical study of medicine, religion, and music will find Ngoma a valuable and thought-provoking book.

Consuelo Kanaga: An American Photographer


Sarah M. Lowe - 1992
    Having begun as a journalist and news photographer, her gaze was documentary, but not barren of personal engagement. Colleague and friend of the better-known Imogen Cunningham and Dorothea Lange, Kanaga was unfortunately undervalued while she lived. With 120 b&w photographs from a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, plus 60 smaller figures, many heretofore unseen and unpublished. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

A Gypsy Life: Adventures of Clare and Edward Allcard Aboard Their Yacht Johanne


Clare Allcard - 1992
    Here Clare tells the story of their adventures aboard the Regina Johanne, a rotting, worm-riddled, 69-foot Baltic Trader they discovered beached in Antigua. Clare and Edward (a naval architect), their daughter Katy, and an ever-shifting crew spent twelve years on the Regina Johanne, working to replace rotten timbers, exterminating the worms that were devouring her hull, constructing a peculiar one-and-a-half poster bed in preparation for a cruise with Clare's parents, and patching the frayed sails by hand. While repairing the boat, they sailed from Antigua to Nevis, England, France, Denmark, and other exotic ports. Clare's insightful writing both addresses her family's personal experiences on the Regina Johanne and includes useful information about the ports they visited, critical advice on the predominant sailing conditions in each area, and characteristics of the various foreign cultures they encountered. Sailors and nonsailors alike will be inspired by Clare's fascinating discussion of the family's nomadic lifestyle aboard the Regina Johanne.

A Promise to the Sun: An African Story


Tololwa M. Mollel - 1992
    A tiny bat brings rain and fruitfulness to the parched African forest, in a Maasai story that explains why bats only venture out at night and why the sun pauses for an instant each evening before sinking below the horizon.

The Rough Guide to Egypt


Daniel Jacobs - 1992
    The guide opens with a 24-page, full-colour section introducing Egypt's highlights, including in-depth accounts of all the top sites, from the pyramids at Giza to the incredible tombs in the Valley of the Kings. The main heart of the guide includes detailed, insider listings on where to find the tastiest food and the best places to stay, whether you're on a budget or travelling in style. There is plenty of practical advice on a host of outdoor pursuits, including diving in the Red Sea to camel-trekking in the Western desert. The guide also includes thorough and informed commentary on Egypt's history and contemporary culture, as well as detailed maps and plans for every region.

Shadows of Africa


Peter Matthiessen - 1992
    Not long thereafter, he stopped by her studio to see the drawing and was so stunned by her work that he proposed they do a book together - a kind of "bestiary" using her many strong drawings of birds and animals, not as illustrations, but in loose association with the evocation of wild creatures in his journals. Over the years the idea was given urgency by the rapid decline of wildlife everywhere. They decided to concentrate on Africa, where the great natural populations have been reduced drastically during the thirty years, from 1961 to 1991, that Matthiessen has traveled on that continent. The resulting book is a lyrical and inspiring collection of words and images that beautifully conveys the nature of animals in the African wild. Through Matthiessen's essays, drawn from his three previous books on Africa as well as from material never before published in book form, we attain a fresh perception of elephants, white rhinos, gorillas, and other endangered creatures. Mary Frank's evocative images - 71 in all, including 23 in color - form a poignant counterpoint to Matthiessen's narrative. Peter Matthiessen and Mary Frank have created a work of great power and beauty, one that is certain to move readers to a new appreciation of African wildlife. But it is hoped that this book will do still more, by drawing attention and support to the protection of wild animals the world over. To further that aim, the authors are donating a portion of their earnings from this book to Wildlife Conservation International, an arm of the New York Zoological Society.

The Beta Israel: Falasha in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century


Steven Kaplan - 1992
    The Midwest Book ReviewKaplan's conceptualizations are judicious and clearly expressed...incisive and well documented... and provides essential background for the process of assimilation now taking lace in Israel.-The International Journal of African Historical Studies Kaplan's able interdisciplinary approach is of great value for persons interested in religion, civilization, and process of change.-Religious Studies Review Kaplan's well-written, lucid presentation make[s] this important, competent contribution accessible to all levels of readers. Highly recommended.ChoiceInsightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Professor of Music, Harvard UniversityUndoubtedly the most detailed, most scholarly, and most dispassionate argument of Falasha history hitherto published. [T]his work deserves ... the most careful study by all those (and in particular in Israel) who have any practical or scholarly connection with the Beta Israel.-- Edward UllendorffEmeritus Professor of Ethiopian Studies, University of LondonFellow of the British AcademyGiven Kaplan's facility with both written and oral sources, he is in a unique position to synthesize and reconcile the new historical findings of ethnographers with the written sources and differing conclusions of earlier historians and linguists. His work is insightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.-- Kay Shelemay, Wesleyan University The origin of the Black Jews of Ethiopia has long been a source of fascination and controversy. Their condition and future continues to generate debate. The culmination of almost a decade of research, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia marks the publication of the first book-length scholarly study of the history of this unique community.In this volume, Steven Kaplan seeks to demythologize the history of the Falasha and to consider them in the wider context of Ethiopian history and culture. This marks a clear departure from previous studies which have viewed them from the external perspective of Jewish history. Drawing on a wide variety of sources including the Beta Israel's own literature and oral traditions, Kaplan demonstrates that they are not a lost Jewish tribe, but rather an ethnic group which emerged in Ethiopia between the 14th and 16th century. Indeed, the name, Falasha, their religious hierarchy, sacred texts, and economic specialization can all be dated to this period. Among the subjects the book addresses are their links with Ethiopian Christianity, the medieval legends concerning their existence, their wars with the Ethiopian emperors, their relegation to the status of a despised semi-caste, their encounters with European missionaries, and the impact of the Great Famine of 1888-1892.Kaplan's definitive treatment will be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish history, African history, and comparative religion, as well as anyone interested in Jewish affairs and the modern Middle East.