Book Review - The Trouble with Africa

The Trouble with Africa: Stories from a Safari Camp by Vic Guhrs: this memoir by a neighbour of mine in Lusaka is required reading before a trip to "the Valley" as Zambia's Luangwa National Park is known. Vic is a talented wildlife painter who married Norman Carr's daughter (also an artist) and helped raise their children in Luangwa. (What an interesting upbringing his children had!) Although he has left the valley now, his children grown, he will not leave Africa. The anecdotes Vic shares of Luangwa are about any number of wildlife encounters he has had over the years or the many and now legendary characters he met there (since they still operate Luangwa's safari businesses this makes for some fun reading), but each one also explains why he will not leave Africa. He can't. It is in his blood. That's the trouble with Africa. And for those of us feel the same way Vic has managed to put our complex and contradictory feelings about this continent into some beautiful and thought provoking prose. It is one of the most honest books that I have read. For more on Vic and his art please see www.vicguhrs.com

14-10-2009