I studied reporters' memoirs of Africa for my PhD in journalism at the University of East Anglia, under Giles Foden, author of The Last King of Scotland. I was fascinated by how foreign correspondents are aided by local reporters, who unfortunately often don’t receive much credit or commensurate pay for their contributions to international news. This inequality is changing, but not quickly enough, and it affects the kinds of news that we all receive, and how western lives, for example, are often respected more than others.
After ten years of reporting from central Africa for The New York Times, Associated Press, and others, Anjan Sundaram finds himself living a quiet life in Shippagan, Canada, with his wife and newborn. But when word arrives of preparations for ethnic cleansing in the Central African Republic, he's suddenly torn between his duty as a husband and father, and his moral responsibility to report on a conflict unseen by the world.
Soon he's traveling through the CAR, with a driver who may be a spy, bearing witness to ransacked villages and locals fleeing imminent massacre, fielding offers of mined gold, and hearing stories of soldiers who steal schoolbooks for rolling paper. Journeying into a rebel stronghold, he learns that there is no going back to the life he left behind.
I promised my publisher, who edited Kapuscinski, a book as elemental, pure, and wild as Kapuscinski's seminal account of the Angolan independence struggle in 1975.
Though I’m not sure I succeeded, Breakup is that book.
I was inspired by this classic of reportage for its simple and profound observations of the city, and countryside, trying to make sense of the chaos and what Angolans, in Portuguese, called confusão.
In 1975, Angola was tumbling into pandemonium; everyone who could was packing crates, desperate to abandon the beleaguered colony. With his trademark bravura, Ryszard Kapuscinski went the other way, begging his was from Lisbon and comfort to Luanda—once famed as Africa's Rio de Janeiro—and chaos.Angola, a slave colony later given over to mining and plantations, was a promised land for generations of poor Portuguese. It had belonged to Portugal since before there were English-speakers in North America. After the collapse of the fascist dictatorship in Portugal in 1974, Angola was brusquely cut loose, spurring the catastrophe of a still-ongoing civil…
I met Aidan in Bunia, on the frontline of the Congo war, where he kindly offered his help, and then, not knowing who he was, I discovered his memoir in the Nairobi airport.
His story of starting as a lowly stringer and working his way up resonated with my own journey as a stringer for The AP in DR Congo, a journey I recount in my first memoir, Stringer.
"Congo is a tough place," he told me in Bunia, "not many people move here to report." I enjoyed reading a book by a reporter who wanted to help young stringers.
A deeply affecting memoir of a childhood in Africa and the continent's horrendous wars, which Hartley witnessed at first hand as a journalist in the 1990s. Shortlisted for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, this is a masterpiece of autobiographical journalism.
Aidan Hartley, a foreign correspondent, burned-out from the horror of covering the terrifying micro wars of the 1990s, from Rwanda to Bosnia, seeks solace and solitude in the remote mountains and deserts of southern Arabia and the Yemen, following his father's death. While there, he finds himself on the trail of the tragic story of an old friend…
Naipaul's long-form reportage "Crocodiles of Yamoussoukro," included in this collection of essays from around the world, including Africa, taught me to root my stories simply.
When I was struggling to locate the core thread of Stringer, I stumbled upon this essay about the Ivory Coast, and more than the descriptions of the place—often dark and mystical—what moved me most was when Naipaul described his reasons for traveling to the Ivory Coast: in part because he was enamored with his French teacher, an elegant woman wearing an African headdress.
It seemed to me marvelous that a large journey could begin in such a precise, universal moment.
This collection of V.S. Naipaul's essays, the first of two volumes, showcases a lifetime of intelligent and profoundly enjoyable writing. It features pieces taken from his earlier books - The Overcrowded Barracoon, The Return of Eva Peron and Finding the Centre - and also includes several previously uncollected essays.
Concentrating mainly on V.S. Naipaul's writings about India, the Americas, Africa and the Diaspora, it is a clear-eyed and magnificent introduction to the writer's extraordinary world.
Michela and I are among the few reporters to have written personal accounts of both the DR Congo and Rwanda, two countries of prime importance to Central African politics, so I feel a kinship with her, and a sense of having learned from her work.
I read this book at a U.N. friend's house when I was a stringer in Kinshasa. I loved Michela's funny and wry observations about Congolese culture and politics, and most of all, about Mobutu's absurd and incredible reign over Congo.
Living in Kinshasa, I often felt a sense of wonder and joy, despite the difficult circumstances in the country, and reading this book in Kinshasa, I thought Michela's writing was infused with the sensations I felt every day.
Known as "the Leopard," the president of Zaire for thirty-two years, Mobutu Sese Seko, showed all the cunning of his namesake -- seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace like some modern-day reincarnation of Joseph Conrad's crazed station manager.
Michela Wrong, a correspondent who witnessed Mobutu's last days, traces the rise and fall of the idealistic young journalist who became the stereotype of an African despot. Engrossing, highly…
One of the first European accounts of Congo, I read this book for my PhD, studying under the British author and journalist Giles Foden.
Pigafetta's account helped me understand the lenses—often colonial, of exoticism, fear, and wonder—through which Congo and Central Africans have long been perceived by Europeans and the world.
Pigafetta writes of Africa as the unknown, the dark, the frightening and mysterious, ideas still present in the news we consume today. I had often wondered why certain stories I pitch never get published, while others are easy sells.
The answers are rooted in events centuries ago, and it's easy to see that when we decide to take a look.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and…
Tiny Tales is a collection of 365 bite-sized stories and poems, written each day of 2023 to a one-word prompt created by one of the official #vss365 (very short story, 365 days a year) ambassadors on Twitter ("X").
Tweet-sized (280 characters or fewer) storytelling (aka "Twitterature") inspires experimentation and variety, and that is exactly what you'll find in this collection of compositions ranging from true stories to playful limericks, romantic fiction to war-inspired tales, wistful observations from a long-ago childhood to fantastical imaginings of a distant future.
Whether you want to read a story a day or use the prompts (included in their original order at the end of the book) as a springboard to jumpstart your own writing, Tiny Tales will keep you entertained and inspired throughout the year. It is a perfect gift to yourself or for any aspiring or avid writer in your life.
Tiny Tales is a collection of 365 bite-sized stories and poems, written each day of 2023 to a one-word prompt created by one of the official #vss365 (very short story, 365 days a year) ambassadors on Twitter ("X"). Tweet-sized (280 characters or fewer) storytelling (aka "Twitterature") inspires experimentation and variety, and that is exactly what you'll find in this collection of compositions ranging from true stories to playful limericks, romantic fiction to war-inspired tales, wistful observations from a long-ago childhood to fantastical imaginings of a distant future.
Whether you want to read a story a day or use the prompts…
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