Dark Star Safari

Critics

• Aid memoir

  Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux 495pp, Hamish Hamilton, £17.99 Half way into his journey through Africa, Paul Theroux is standing by the roadside in northern Kenya, looking, by his own account, a little down-at-heel. Pushing 60, he has a hole in his ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• Back in form and Africa

  Back in the far-off 1970s, Paul Theroux put travel writing back on the map for the first time since the Thirties. When he chugged into Moscow at the end of The Great Railway Bazaar he became the best-known travel writer of his generation. But his rep ... (read full critics)

  spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

3 Reviews

• 

  Dark Star Safari

  This book is both entertaining and informative about the current situation in Africa. Some New Zealand cyclist friends had planned on going to Africa, but changed their minds after reading "Dark Star Safari".

  I believe what Paul Theroux says about Aid Agencies in Africa is verifiable and logical. ... (continue)

  This book is both entertaining and informative about the current situation in Africa. Some New Zealand cyclist friends had planned on going to Africa, but changed their minds after reading "Dark Star Safari".

  I believe what Paul Theroux says about Aid Agencies in Africa is verifiable and logical. People are kept in a dependent status by giving them what they should get for themselves. The West has done irreptuable harm to people of less fortunate countries by doing for them what they should and can do for themselves.

  Roger Humbke

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  Roger Humbke said on Jan 27, 2010 | Add your feedback

• He has written so many travel books and novels. I read them all. Too many to list. His views are insightful and a bit twisted...he is definitely not the guy you bring home to meet "mom". Seriously...any of them are great and if you can meet him at a book review you will see what I mean...very edgy. ... (continue)

  He has written so many travel books and novels. I read them all. Too many to list. His views are insightful and a bit twisted...he is definitely not the guy you bring home to meet "mom". Seriously...any of them are great and if you can meet him at a book review you will see what I mean...very edgy. Reminds me of the Oscar Wilde comment about heaven versus hell and Wilde chose hell because you would meet so many more interesting people...Theroux would be there waiting for you.

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  ProfT said on Jun 30, 2009 | Add your feedback

• 

  Paul Theroux wants to get away from his desk, from emails, faxes and mobile phones .. so he embarks on a journey back to Africa where he had been a teacher some 40 years earlier (in Uganda and Malawi). He starts from Cairo and crosses a dozen countries across the entire continent, ending the monume ... (continue)

  Paul Theroux wants to get away from his desk, from emails, faxes and mobile phones .. so he embarks on a journey back to Africa where he had been a teacher some 40 years earlier (in Uganda and Malawi). He starts from Cairo and crosses a dozen countries across the entire continent, ending the monumental journey in Cape Town, South Africa. This is no tourist-type affair - Paul does is the hard way: in crowded buses, run-down trains, canoes, on foot, alongside the colourful and diverse locals he meets along the way. Here is an excerpt: "I had seen poor roads on this trip but this one was spectacularly bad, worse than the no-road route through the Sudanese desert ...... The day was very hot, there was no shade, and the land stretched ahead, white and dazzling, like an alkali desert. We were travelling at about ten miles an hour and had 200 miles ahead of us...."

  It's a good read if you are interested in the cultural and geographical aspects of many different countries in Africa, narrated with gusto, with humour and with a prose that "leaps to life like a mosaic splashed with water."

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  Cinzia said on Oct 27, 2008 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (21)
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• English Books
• Paperback 512 Pages
• Edition: New Ed
• ISBN-10: 0140281118
• ISBN-13: 9780140281118
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Pub date: Aug 07, 2003
• Dimensions: 1226 mm x 774 mm x 258 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Hardcover, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Libri Italiani

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