- 480 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
An examination of colonialism and its consequences. "A sweeping, poetic homage to Africa, a continent made vivid by Hartley's capable, stunning prose" (
Publishers Weekly).
In his final days, Aidan Hartley's father said to him, "We should have never come here." Those words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back through four generations of one British family. From a great-great-grandfather who defended British settlements in nineteenth-century New Zealand, to his father, a colonial officer sent to Africa in the 1920s and who later returned to raise a family there—these were intrepid men who traveled to exotic lands to conquer, build, and bear witness. And there was Aidan, who became a journalist covering Africa in the 1990s, a decade marked by terror and genocide.
After encountering the violence in Somalia, Uganda, and Rwanda, Aidan retreated to his family's house in Kenya where he discovered the Zanzibar chest his father left him. Intricately hand-carved, the chest contained the diaries of his father's best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who had died under obscure circumstances five decades before. With the papers as his guide, Hartley embarked on a journey not only to unlock the secrets of Davey's life, but his own.
"The finest account of a war correspondent's psychic wracking since Michael Herr's Dispatches." —Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart
In his final days, Aidan Hartley's father said to him, "We should have never come here." Those words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back through four generations of one British family. From a great-great-grandfather who defended British settlements in nineteenth-century New Zealand, to his father, a colonial officer sent to Africa in the 1920s and who later returned to raise a family there—these were intrepid men who traveled to exotic lands to conquer, build, and bear witness. And there was Aidan, who became a journalist covering Africa in the 1990s, a decade marked by terror and genocide.
After encountering the violence in Somalia, Uganda, and Rwanda, Aidan retreated to his family's house in Kenya where he discovered the Zanzibar chest his father left him. Intricately hand-carved, the chest contained the diaries of his father's best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who had died under obscure circumstances five decades before. With the papers as his guide, Hartley embarked on a journey not only to unlock the secrets of Davey's life, but his own.
"The finest account of a war correspondent's psychic wracking since Michael Herr's Dispatches." —Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Journalist Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- THE ZANZIBAR CHEST
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Epigraph
- BEYOND THE RIVERS OF ETHIOPIA
- TAKE ME HOME TO MAMA
- JOURNALIST PLUS PLUS
- THE ZANZIBAR CHEST
- FEEDING THE BEAST
- GOING NATIVE
- THE SOUND OF FREEDOM IN THE AIR
- EMPTY QUARTER
- LAZARUS
- ONE MOMENT, OF THE WELL OF LIFE TO TASTE
- HEROGRAMS
- POSTSCRIPT
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Back Cover