The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African SafariFollowing the success of the acclaimed Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and The Great Railway Bazaar, The Last Train to Zona Verde is an ode to the last African journey of the world's most celebrated travel writer. “Happy again, back in the kingdom of light,” writes Paul Theroux as he sets out on a new journey through the continent he knows and loves best. Theroux first came to Africa as a twenty-two-year-old Peace Corps volunteer, and the pull of the vast land never left him. Now he returns, after fifty years on the road, to explore the little-traveled territory of western Africa and to take stock both of the place and of himself. His odyssey takes him northward from Cape Town, through South Africa and Namibia, then on into Angola, wishing to head farther still until he reaches the end of the line. Journeying alone through the greenest continent, Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from both the itineraries of tourists and the hopes of postcolonial independence movements. Leaving the Cape Town townships, traversing the Namibian bush, passing the browsing cattle of the great sunbaked heartland of the savanna, Theroux crosses “the Red Line” into a different Africa: “the improvised, slapped-together Africa of tumbled fences and cooking fires, of mud and thatch,” of heat and poverty, and of roadblocks, mobs, and anarchy. After 2,500 arduous miles, he comes to the end of his journey in more ways than one, a decision he chronicles with typically unsparing honesty in a chapter called “What Am I Doing Here?” Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers. |
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THE LAST TRAIN TO ZONA VERDE: My Ultimate African Safari
User Review - Jane Doe - KirkusThe acclaimed travel writer and novelist chronicles his journey through Africa as tourist, adventure-seeker, thinker and hopeful critic.Theroux (The Lower River, 2012, etc.) is the purest kind of ... Read full review
Contents
1 Among the Unreal People | 1 |
2 The Train from Khayelitsha | 14 |
The Spirit of the Cape | 40 |
4 The Night Bus to Windhoek | 59 |
5 Night Train from Swakopmund | 79 |
6 The Bush Track to Tsumkwe | 102 |
7 Ceremony at the Crossroads | 118 |
8 Among the Real People | 134 |
12 Three Pieces of Chicken | 222 |
13 Volunteering in Lubango | 242 |
14 The Slave Yards of Benguela | 268 |
The Improvised City | 297 |
16 This Is What the World Will Look Like When It Ends | 320 |
17 What Am I Doing Here? | 333 |
Back Flap | 355 |
Back Cover | 356 |
The Ultimate Safari | 160 |
10 The Hungry Herds at Etosha | 180 |
11 The Frontier of Bad Karma | 200 |
Spine | 357 |
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Africa Afrikaans Akisha Angola animals Archie asked beer Benguela border Botswana boys bush Bushman called Camillo Cape Town Chinese colonial Congo Dambo dark desert EHEHEHEI elephants Etosha face farms fence field fifty figures film find fingers fire first five flies foreign German Gilberto girls Grootfontein Guguletu head Herero houses huts Ju/’hoansi Kalunga Khayelitsha kill knew Kwanyama land landscape laughed live Lobito looked Luanda Lubango Lwandle mahouts Malema miles Namibia Nyae official ofl Ondangwa Ondjiva Otjiwarongo Ovambo Pepetela perhaps Phaks Portugal Portuguese river road safari seemed seen settlement shacks shantytown slave slum smiling sort South African squatter camp story street Swakopmund talk There’s told tourists township train trees Trevor trip Tsumkwe village walked wanted What’s Windhoek woman women word write wrote Xangongo