Author: Jeffrey Tayler Publisher: Abacus (UK) ISBN: 9780349114507 Category : Congo (Democratic Republic) Languages : en Pages : 326
Book Description
This book transports readers into the jungles and crocodile-infested waters of sub-Saharan Africa. The author travels a river barge teeming with merchants, mothers, prostitutes, fishermen, and spiritual followers, then launches his quest to confront the Congo River by descending its longest navigational stretch.
Author: Jeffrey Tayler Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0609808265 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 287
Book Description
Faced with an identity crisis in his work and his life, seasoned traveler and journalist Jeffrey Tayler made a bold decision. He would leave behind his mundane existence in Moscow to re-create the legendary British explorer Henry Stanley’s trip down the Congo in a dugout canoe, stocked with food, medicine, and even a gun-toting guide. But once his tiny boat pushed off the banks of this mysterious river, Tayler realized he was in a place where maps and supplies would have no bearing on his survival. As Tayler navigates this immense waterway, he encounters a land of smothering heat and intense rains, wary villagers, corrupt officials and dead-eyed soldiers demanding bribes, jungle animals, mosquitoes, and, surprisingly, breathtaking natural beauty. Filled with honesty and rich description, Facing the Congo is a sophisticated depiction of today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country brought to its knees by a succession of despotic leaders. But most mportant, Tayler’s stunning narrative is a deeply satisfying personal journey of fear and awakening, with a message that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt compelled, whether in life or in fantasy, to truly explore and experience our world.
Author: Jason Stearns Publisher: PublicAffairs ISBN: 1610391594 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 372
Book Description
A "meticulously researched and comprehensive" (Financial Times) history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa's Congo, with first-hand accounts of the continent's worst conflict in modern times. At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply-reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power, as well as the moral decisions with which the war confronted them. Now updated with a new introduction, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tells the full story of Africa's Great War.
Author: V. S. Naipaul Publisher: Vintage Canada ISBN: 0735277141 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 355
Book Description
In the "brilliant novel" (The New York Times) V.S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man — an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independent African nation. Naipaul gives us the most convincing and disturbing vision yet of what happens in a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past and traditions.
Author: Mike Martin Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 1849048517 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 235
Book Description
In 2013, three friends set off on a journey that they had been told was impossible: the north-south crossing of the Congo River Basin, from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Juba, in South Sudan. Traversing 2,500 miles of the toughest terrain on the planet in a twenty-five year-old Land Rover, they faced repeated challenges, from kleptocracy and fire ants to non-existent roads and intense suspicion from local people. Through imagination and teamwork -- including building rafts and bridges, conducting makeshift surgery in the jungle and playing tribal politics -- they got through. But the Congo is raw, and the journey took an unexpected psychological toll on them all. Crossing the Congo is an offbeat travelogue, a story of friendship and what it takes to complete a great journey against tremendous odds, and an intimate look into one of the world's least-developed and most fragile states, told with humor and sensitivity.
Author: Michael Deibert Publisher: Zed Books Ltd. ISBN: 1780323484 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 197
Book Description
Over the past two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been at the centre of the deadliest series of conflicts since the Second World War, and now hosts the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world. In this compelling book, acclaimed journalist Michael Deibert paints a picture of a nation in flux, inching towards peace but at the same time solidifying into another era of authoritarian rule under its enigmatic president, Joseph Kabila. Featuring a wealth of first-hand interviews and secondary sources, the narrative travels from war-torn villages in the country's east to the chaotic, pulsing capital of Kinshasa in order to bring us the voices of the Congolese - from impoverished gold prospectors and market women to government officials - as it explores the complicated political, ethnic and economic geography of this tattered land. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Africa, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between, Hope and Despair sheds new light on this sprawling and often misunderstood country that has become iconic both for its great potential and dashed hopes.
Author: Bryan Mealer Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1608196674 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
In All Things Must Fight to Live, Bryan Mealer takes readers on a harrowing two-thousand mile journey through Congo, where gun-toting militia still rape and kill with impunity. Amidst burnt-out battlefields where armies still wrestle for control, into the dark corners of the forests, and along the high savanna, where thousands have been slaughtered and quickly forgotten, Mealer searches for signs that Africa's most troubled state will soon rise from ruin. At once illuminating and startling, All Things Must Fight to Live is a searing portrait of an emerging country facing unimaginable upheaval and almost impossible odds, as well as an unflinching look at the darkness that continues to exist in the hearts of men. It is non-fiction at its finest-powerful, moving, necessary.
Author: Trésor Yenyi Publisher: iUniverse ISBN: 1450258158 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 189
Book Description
Trsor Yenyi was born in Eastern Congo in 1983 at the peak of Mobutus reign. Not realizing he was witnessing history in the making, he was helpless as he observed the country slide first into chaos, then into its gravethe victim of looting, war, and corruption. It was only after he immigrated to the United States that he realized the depth of the destruction that had occurred and began nurturing a strong desire to return to his native country to search for a cure for the disease from which Congo suffers. In his compelling travel narrative, Yenyi details his return trips to Congo, his subsequent charitable work, and the heartbreaking stories of the countrys victims of war. While providing the voiceless a chance to speak through him, Yenyi reveals the humanitarian challenges of Congo and combines his life experiences with journal entriescreating an introspective glimpse into a world where child soldiers, rape victims, street children, and AIDS orphans are the realities of life. Trsor Yenyi has a dreamthat the troubled land of his ancestors will find peace once again. It is with this great hope for the future of his homeland that Yenyi remembers Congos forgotten.
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Author: Jeffrey Tayler
Author: Jeffrey Tayler
Author: Jason Stearns
Author: Jeffrey Tayler
Author: V. S. Naipaul
Author: Mike Martin
Author: Eli Greenbaum
Author: Michael Deibert
Author: Bryan Mealer
Author: Trésor Yenyi