Isak Dinesen and the land and people she loved are nowhere so real and compelling as in Longing for Darkness, written by Dinesen's majordomo, Kamante, and now boasting a smart new cover. Readers familiar with Out of Africa may recognize many of the enchanting stories. These celebrated tales and others are retold here from Kamante's perspective and are enhanced with his own drawings and letters, Dinesen's words and snapshots, and photographs by Peter Beard. Writes Beard, "Over a period of 12 years, as if divesting himself of his possessions, Kamante put down the extra dimensions of truth which are at the heart of Out of Africa."
When twenty-year-old Annie leaves her privileged life in suburban New York to set up a leather clothing factory in Ethiopia, she anticipates glorious savannas, magnificent animals, and colorful tribesmen. Her treasured childhood Africa scrapbook never prepared her for the isolated, barren mountains of northern Ethiopia, relentless poverty, and a ten-year drought and famine unacknowledged by the world. Housed in a primitive mud hut with no electricity or indoor plumbing, falling in love with a handsome Italian, and forced to flee the military coup that toppled Haile Selassie, will Annie find the Africa of her childhood dreams or will she return home, disillusioned? Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gilbert, Alexandra Fuller, or Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen). "With a title like this, of course, I was compelled to read this beautifully written book! A fascinating and adventurous life, spiced with danger, and with a love story thrown in. You can't go wrong." Jane Goodall, Ph.D., DBE. Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute. UN Messenger of Peace. "This swept me away. Ann Schrank writes like a magical spider, spinning continental webs that ensnare the reader. There's flavor, fragrance, wit, perseverance, and pinpoint observational awareness. Owning a great story doesn't guarantee being able to tell it well. It's a gift with which Ms. Schrank is lavishly endowed." Richard Bangs. TV host and producer and author of numerous travel books. "Each chapter brims with anticipation and springs alive with poignant description. A girl reveals in a glance the story of her desperate hunger, told in words so intense we can smell Africa, from the spices to the rotting fruit. Teeming with historical overview and literary flourish, Longing for Africa reads like Graham Greene plus romance." Cathy Luchetti. Author of Women of the West, Children of the West, and Men of the West. "A memorable story of love, loss and Italian cooking, Schrank's descriptions of the Palmucci's Sunday lunch table had me dining right there alongside her. Schrank is a skillful storyteller, writing with compassion and fondness for the people who care about Africa and those who have come to call the continent home." Robyn Keene-Young. Author and wildlife documentary producer.
"This is an eloquently curated anthology. All manner of endearment, passion and erotic pursuits are expressed. The dark matter of loss, betrayal and tragic jealousy are woven in with fidelity, beauty and tenderness to reveal love's infinitely varied and detailed fabric." -- Back cover.
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.
Based on more than three years of rural and urban ethnographic research, this book is a study of the ways urbanization has become deeply embedded in the social, cultural, and economic life of a Senegalese community.
Kamante, hero of Isak Dineson's Out of Africa, relates autobiographical tales and his rendering of European fables. Illustrated in bandw by his water colors and photographs by Dineson and Peter Beard, who collected and translated the tales (from Swahili) and had Kamante's son hand write them for the book. 8x12". Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This eye-opening personal history tells the story of an American college professor’s twenty-year engagement with a thriving Africa rarely encountered by Western visitors, including an extraordinary connection to poets across the continent. At once adventurous, spiritual, political, dreamlike, and humorous, Joining Africa is a unique documentary of a journey through the continent, including an intense five-year encounter with economically struggling but culturally fertile Eritrea. The Africa presented here is neither a postcolonial study nor an exotic tourist destination. It is rich with the voices of its people, whose languages, Cantalupo argues, have greater potential to effect change than any NGO or high-profile celebrity. In vibrant prose, Cantalupo’s book extends a stirring invitation to reevaluate how we engage—both individually and collectively—with this remarkable part of the world.
Thomas Johnson and Charles Spurgeon lived worlds apart. Johnson, an American slave, born into captivity and longing for freedom--- Spurgeon, an Englishman born into relative ease and comfort, but, longing too for a freedom of his own. Their respective journeys led to an unlikely meeting and an even more unlikely friendship, forged by fate and mutual love for the mission of Christ. Steal Away Home is a new kind of book based on historical research, which tells a previously untold story set in the 1800s of the relationship between an African-American missionary and one of the greatest preachers to ever live.
