Short description
An extraordinary, passionate and personal journey into Africa's past. 'The most enthralling account out of Africa for years.' Daily Mail.
Long description
An extraordinary, passionate and personal journey into Africa's past. 'The most enthralling account out of Africa for years.' Daily Mail. ' Livingstone's Tribe is excellent!Taylor is an intelligent and stimulating companion.' Financial Times 'At the book's heart is a riveting examination of Livingstone's tribe!the whites of post-independence Africa.' Independent on Sunday 'Taylor's expedition into the interior of the continent's colonial past has got everything that such a book should have.' Guardian 'Stephen Taylor, a third-generation emigre of British descent, finds a melancholy collection of white misfits and failures!as well as a heroic, dwindling clutch of missionaries still holding the line. The catalogue of theft, corruption, murder and superstition that Taylor chronicles makes appalling, fascinating reading. Yet Taylor is no Colonel Blimp, rather an anti-apartheid liberal who fled the old South Africa and welcomed independence for Mugabe's Zimbabwe.' Daily Mail 'Sights and travel experiences are vividly described and people both from Livingstone's and from the other tribes are handled particularly well.' Sunday Times
Review
Born a colonial in South Africa, Taylor grew up in the 1950s accustomed to having black servants. When the apartheid state began to manifest its ugliness, Taylor left for England and began to write for newspapers including The Times and The Observer. This book charts his course as he returns to the African continent to uncover the traces of his past; to find his own 'tribe'. As a reporter, Taylor has an eye for detail, a good ear for the emotional nuance of human witness. He also brings a wider perspective, both from his international experience and his family background. He interviews blacks and whites, rich and poor, on his trail through countries including Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe; he concentrates especially on the situation of whites who have chosen to stay, post-independence, in the south of Africa. Lucid and wide-ranging, it is a book about that most basic of human themes: belonging. (Kirkus UK)