He wants Africa to make leaps and bounds in its economic and political policy, but then how would he be able to write so endearingly of the street urchins and the poverty? After all, seeing those things and writing about them makes him strong and experienced, right? Just because you have a backpack and a history with Africa doesn't make you an expert, and Theroux whining about the fact that Africa hasn't lived up to its promise since he was there last only makes him look like all the people he criticizes. Instead I'm annoyed by his arrogance and his assumption that he's different from other white people in Africa because he 'knows' that the aide system is faulty or because he lived there in the 60's. Dark Star Safari is one of his bravest and best books.WHY do I keep reading books by this man? For some unknown reason I assume that I'll garner some great knowledge form his books or be more amused than frustrated. In fact, my trip was a delight and a revelation.” Seeing firsthand what is happening across Africa, Theroux is as obsessively curious and wittily observant as always, and his readers will find themselves on an epic and enlightening journey. I got sick, I got stranded, but I was never bored. It is an assortment of motley republics and seedy chiefdoms. ∺frica is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it,” he writes, hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you can’t tell the politicians from the witch doctors. He finds astonishing, devastating changes wherever he goes. Now he stops at his old school, sees former students, revisits his African friends. Almost forty years ago, Theroux first went to Africa as a teacher in the Malawi bush.

This is travel as discovery and also, in part, a sentimental journey. Going by train, dugout canoe, chicken bus,” and cattle truck, Theroux passes through some of the most beautiful and often life-threatening landscapes on earth. In the travel-writing tradition that made Paul Theroux’s reputation, Dark Star Safari is a rich and insightful book whose itinerary is Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town: down the Nile, through Sudan and Ethiopia, to Kenya, Uganda, and ultimately to the tip of South Africa.

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux