Written to her family, these letters recount the failure of Dinesen's marriage, the financial collapse of her husband's coffee plantation, and her experiences in Kenya
"Here is a rich new biographical perspective on the brilliant storyteller whose sophisticated romantic fiction . . . made her an international success and perpetual candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. . . . These letters] contain the raw material that was later transformed into her classic memoir "Out of Africa" (1937). They also reveal her as a highly intelligent and sensitive analyst of a strange new world." Bruce Allen, "Christian Science Monitor" ""Letters from Africa" is literary gold, 24 karat." Alden Whitman, "Boston Globe""
Dr. Tuthill embarked on her first safari into the African bush in 2003, honoring the death of her best friend, the astronaut Kalpana Chawla, in the crash of the space shuttle Columbia. She and her husband fell deeply in love with the animals and the people they met in the wilds of southern Africa, and the experience changed their lives. They have traveled back every year and lovingly chronicled each experience in detailed letters to Kalpana's sisters in India. The letters follow the daily routine in remote bush camps, covering the details of camp life along with the excitement and thrill of walking safaris, canoe trips, and game drives. One can almost hear the hippos by night and smell the fresh lavender along the path, as Tuthill describes the nightly "sundowners" enjoyed with her beloved husband, and details the spectacular views and experiences they shared together. In this poignant set of travel essays Tuthill depicts the glories of ecotravel and demonstrates how our vacation dollars can be used to help save the continent of Africa.
In Out of Africa, author Isak Dinesen takes a wistful and nostalgic look back on her years living in Africa on a Kenyan coffee plantation. Recalling the lives of friends and neighbours—both African and European—Dinesen provides a first-hand perspective of colonial Africa. Through her obvious love of both the landscape and her time in Africa, Dinesen’s meditative writing style deeply reflects the themes of loss as her plantation fails and she returns to Europe. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.
Don Pinnock, a well-known travel writer, has drawn on his passion for Africa and his experience as a journalist for Getaway magazine to write yet another entertaining and engrossing book of short essays on natural history, full of humor, interest and speculation. Each of his essays reveals something of natures many quirks and offers startlingly large questions from little things that ordinary folk pass over with hardly a glance. The pieces are short and easily digestible, with a bit of philosophy and an interest in the human story. And include ruminations on the following questions: · Are clouds alive? · Where is Africa's most dangerous river? · Why do female hyenas sometimes grow a penis? · Why did Zulu warriors never ride into battle mounted on zebras?
"Blake's adventurous essays--her Letters from Togo--are based on the letters she wrote to her friends from Lome, the West African capital where she spent a Fulbright year teaching American literature from 1983 to 1984. As Blake begins the process of making sense out of a vibrant, seeming anarchy, we are pulled along with her into the heart of Togo--a tiny dry strip of a country no one can even find on a map"--Back cover.
Studies of religion have a tendency to conceptualise 'the Spirit' and 'the Letter' as mutually exclusive and intrinsically antagonistic. However, the history of religions abounds in cases where charismatic leaders deliberately refer to and make use of writings. This book challenges prevailing scholarly notions of the relationship between 'charisma' and 'institution' by analysing reading and writing practices in contemporary Christianity. Taking up the continuing anthropological interest in Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity, and representing the first book-length treatment of literacy practices among African Christians, this volume explores how church leaders in Zambia refer to the Bible and other religious literature, and how they organise a church bureaucracy in the Pentecostal-charismatic mode. Thus, by examining social processes and conflicts that revolve around the conjunction of Pentecostal-charismatic and literacy practices in Africa, Spirits and Letters reconsiders influential conceptual dichotomies in the social sciences and the humanities and is therefore of interest not only to anthropologists but also to scholars working in the fields of African studies, religious studies, and the sociology of religion.
This group of unpublished letters from settlers in Sierra Leone record what was probably the earliest attempt on the part of ex-slaves to obtain political and land rights through their literacy in English. Their efforts ended in tragedy in some cases.
Covering the years 1934 to 1966, this revealing self-portrait by one of the most remarkable women of our time recounts, through her letters to friends and family, Goodall's enduring love affair with the "dark continent." 16-page photo insert.