Africa Memoir

After his father's heart attack in 1984, Peter Godwin began a series of pilgrimages back to Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, from Manhattan, where he now lives. On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downward into the jaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years.  

In Mandela, former foreign correspondent Bob Crew demystifies the icon and his legacy. After over a decade of travels in South Africa, Crew seeks truth in the unexpected details of the lives of Mandela and current South African president Jacob Zuma, comparing them to other world icons in order to bring a new understanding of their legacies to Western listeners.

Lloyd Camp takes you on an evocative journey through some of the wildest places in Africa as he relives colorful vignettes from his adventurous childhood and long career as a safari guide. This is a charming, funny, thoughtful, and often hair-raising series of short stories that illustrate Lloyd's enthusiastic delight in leading his clients into the wilderness areas of Africa. Forthright yet lighthearted, Lloyd's suspenseful narrative emphasizes both his love of the African bush and the courage and resilience of the Africans that he encounters in his odysseys.

Out of Africa: In this audiobook, the author of Seven Gothic Tales gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya. She tells with classic simplicity of the ways of the country and the natives: of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom: of her guests, from the...

From Jeffrey Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist, comes a passionate, revealing story about finding love and finding a calling, set against one of the most turbulent regions in the world. A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict...

At the age of sixty, and having lived with Parkinson’s disease for over ten years, Guy Deacon CBE set out on one last adventure: to drive solo from his home in the UK 18,000 miles and through twenty-five countries to Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa. This incredible journey, across Europe and down the full length of Africa, took the former British Army officer over twelve months. Along the way, he broke down five times, underwent one emergency evacuation, and took 3,650 prescription pills.

A finales del siglo XVII, el reino del Kongo —inmenso territorio que ocupaba lo que hoy es Angola, los dos Congos y una parte de Gabón— estaba en crisis y al mismo tiempo bajo la ocupación expansionista de Portugal. En ese contexto vivió un personaje histórico y emblemático: Kimpa Vita, mujer antiesclavista, profeta y líder del movimiento sincrético antonionista que intentó emanciparse de los europeos.

The road to success is rarely linear and never easy. But with courage, hard work, perseverance, and dedication to duty, Jim Ovia, founder and chairman of Zenith Bank, proves we can achieve the unthinkable. Jim has been called the Godfather of Banking by Forbes Africa. And this should be no surprise. In a time of tension between military and civilian regimes, periods of incredible economic instability, and a decaying infrastructure, Jim founded Zenith Bank in Nigeria.

As Under Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1907, Winston S. Churchill toured Britain's territories in East Africa. My African Journey, first published in 1908, documents his travels and the people he met; he waxes lyrical on the natural beauty of Uganda and goes on to explore Egypt and Sudan via the White Nile. More than a travelogue however, Churchill, now in his 30s, turns his attention towards issues of government and development, suggesting that the best way to tap the latent wealth of East Africa was the development of the railway system.

Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel, and their five-year-old daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker; pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn; while the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the country - learning the local language and customs.

'Traveling with Nyamayaro - from Tblisi to Montevideo - is both inspiring and maddening, seeing all that has been accomplished and all that’s left to do. Somehow, through it all, she manages to maintain an unwavering optimism - and a belief in the power of NGOs, education, collaboration, and...

David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary and one of the greatest European explorers who ever lived. He fought all his life against slavery, and is remembered as a national hero for opening up the interior of the so-called "Dark Continent"; his expeditions had a tremendous influence on the colonization of Africa and the relation between Europeans and Africans. The son of a Christian missionary himself, Livingstone felt a spiritual calling to reach people in the interior of Africa in order to find new commercial routes and thus free the Africans from the plague of slavery.

As a five-year-old, George Alagiah emigrated with his family to Ghana, the first African country to gain independence from the British Empire. A Passage to Africa is Alagiah's shattering catalogue of atrocities crafted into a portrait of Africa that is infused with hope, insight and outrage. In vivid and evocative prose and with a fine eye for detail, Alagiah's viewpoint is spiked with the freshness of the young George on his arrival in Ghana, the wonder with which he recounts his first impressions of Africa and the affection with which he dresses his stories of his early life.

In 2013, South African businessman Daniel Janse van Rensburg set off to the West African country to finalise a legitimate airline contract with a local politician. Within days, Daniel was arrested by the local Rapid Intervention Force and detained without trial in the island’s infamous ‘Guantanamo’ cells, and was later taken to Black Beach. This is his remarkable story of survival over nearly two years, made possible by his unwavering faith and the humanity of a few fellow inmates. In this thrilling first-person narrative, Daniel relives his ordeal.

Recién casada, una joven danesa, aristócrata y refinada, hija y hermana de militares, viaja a Kenia, donde permanece durante diecisiete años. Esta experiencia da lugar a una novela que es una encendida declaración de amor a unos paisajes, a unas gentes y a unas culturas situadas en el polo opuesto de lo que había sido su pasado familiar y social. Poseída por la misma pulsión de Sherezade, Isak Dinesen nos sumerge en un relato que se prolonga a lo largo de páginas encantadas: el de su vida en África y el de la vida de los que la rodeaban, europeos o somalíes, kikuyus o masais.

From walking with lions in the bush to dodging bombs in Tanzania’s largest city, psychologist Susanne Rheault recounts, with candor and humility, the hard lessons learned during a life working to help impoverished communities in Africa. The daughter of a Green Beret, Susie has lived a transient life ever since she was a young girl. In her engaging memoir, we come to discover her fierce spirit as she seeks out a life of purpose, never shying away from adventures that often carry unseen dangers.

The story of the intelligence war in South Africa during the Second World War is one of suspense, drama and dogged persistence. In 1939, when the Union of South Africa entered the war on Britain’s side, the German government secretly contacted the political opposition, and the leadership of the anti-war movement, the Ossewabrandwag. The Nazis’ aim was to spread sedition, undermine the Allied war effort, and - given the strategic importance of the Cape of Good Hope sea route - gain naval intelligence. Soon U-boat packs were sent to operate in South African waters, to deadly effect.

Recent research has revealed that the richest person of all time lived in the 14th century in West Africa and went by many names, including Kankan Musa Keita, Emir of Melle, Lord of the Mines of Wangara, Conqueror of Ghanata, and the Lion of Mali II, but today he is usually referred to as Mansa Musa. Adjusting his wealth to modern values, he was worth about an estimated $400 billion as the Sultan of ancient Mali, which controlled the trade routes across the Sahara Desert.

Why would a 57-year-old with a genetic heart condition attempt the fastest journey on foot from Cape Town to Cairo? In Running Africa, Keith Boyd tells the story of his epic run, complete with injuries, illness, being taken hostage, getting caught up in a rebel firefight, and having members of his team imprisoned.

The author, one of the foremost scholars on Africa, fought to legitimize African history for more than 60 years. This book finally uncovers the tumultuous life of this great figure. Through a series of autobiographical essays, Clarke looks back on his lifelong struggle to restore African history...