The Zanzibar chest : a story of life, love, and death in foreign lands / Aidan Hartley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hartley, Aidan, 1965-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Colonial influence.

Africa, Sub-Saharan--History--1884-1960.

Africa, Sub-Saharan.

Sub-Saharan Africa.

History.

Africa, Sub-Saharan--History--1960-.

Great Britain--Colonies--Africa.

Great Britain.

Colonies.

Africa.

Africa, Sub-Saharan--Colonial influence.

Hartley family.

Physical Description:

414 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, [2003]

Summary:

In his final days, rising from a bed made of mountain cedar, lashed with thongs of rawhide from an oryx shot many years before, Aidan Hartley's father says to him, "We should have never come." Those words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back over 150 years through four generations of one British family. From great-great-grandfather William Temple, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his role in defending British settlements in nineteenth-century New Zealand, to his father, a colonial officer sent to Africa in the 1920s, building dams and irrigation projects in Arabia in the 1940s, then returning to Africa to raise a family -- these were intrepid men who traveled to exotic lands to conquer, to build, and to bear witness. Finally there is Aidan, who becomes a journalist covering Africa in the 1990s. Weaving together stories of his childhood in Africa, his family's history, and his experiences as a reporter, Aidan tells us what he saw.

After the end of the Cold War, there seemed to be new hope for Africa but again and again -- in Ethiopia, in Somalia, Rwanda, and the Congo, the terror and genocide prevailed. In Somalia, three of Aidan's close friends were torn to pieces by an angry mob. Then, after walking overland from Uganda with the rebel army, Aidan was witness to the terrible atrocities in Rwanda, appearing at the sites and interviewing survivors days after the massacres. Finally, burnt out from a decade of horror, Aidan retreated to his family's house in Kenya where he discovered the Zanzibar chest his father left him. Intricately hand-carved and smelling of camphor, the chest contained the diaries of his father's best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who died under mysterious circumstances over fifty years earlier. Tucking the papers under his arm, Hartley embarked on a journey to southern Arabia in an effort not only to unlock the secrets of Davey's life, but of his own. He traveled to the remote mountains and deserts of southern Arabia where his father served as a British officer. He began to piece together the disparate elements of Davey's story, a man who fell in love with an Arabian woman and converted to Islam, but ultimately had to pay an exacting price. The Zanzibar Chest is an enthralling narrative of men and women meddling with, embracing, and ultimately being transformed by other cultures.

Contents:

Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia 3

Take Me Home to Mama 13

Journalist Plus Plus 71

The Zanzibar Chest 133

Feeding the Beast 155

Going Native 225

The Sound of Freedom in the Air 259

Empty Quarter 305

Lazarus 323

One Moment, of the Well of Life to Taste 383

Herograms 393.

ISBN:

0871138719

OCLC:

51553760