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Combining literary reportage, memoir, family history, and a quest to piece together a decades-old mystery, The Zanzibar Chest is a moving examination of colonialism and its consequences.
In his final days, Aidan Hartley’s father said to him, “We should have never come.” Those words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back through four generations of one British family. From a great-great-grandfather who defended British settlements in nineteenth-century New Zealand, to his father, a colonial officer sent to Africa in the 1920s and who later returned to raise a family there—these were intrepid men who traveled to exotic lands to conquer, build, and bear witness. And there is Aidan, who becomes a journalist covering Africa in the 1990s, a decade marked by terror and genocide. After encountering the violence in Somalia, Uganda, and Rwanda, Aidan retreats to his family’s house in Kenya where he discovers the Zanzibar chest his father left him. Intricately hand-carved, the chest contained the diaries of his father’s best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who had died under obscure circumstances five decades before. With the papers as his guide, Hartley embarked on a journey not only to unlock the secrets of Davey’s life, but his own.
In his final days, Aidan Hartley’s father said to him, “We should have never come.” Those words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back through four generations of one British family. From a great-great-grandfather who defended British settlements in nineteenth-century New Zealand, to his father, a colonial officer sent to Africa in the 1920s and who later returned to raise a family there—these were intrepid men who traveled to exotic lands to conquer, build, and bear witness. And there is Aidan, who becomes a journalist covering Africa in the 1990s, a decade marked by terror and genocide. After encountering the violence in Somalia, Uganda, and Rwanda, Aidan retreats to his family’s house in Kenya where he discovers the Zanzibar chest his father left him. Intricately hand-carved, the chest contained the diaries of his father’s best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who had died under obscure circumstances five decades before. With the papers as his guide, Hartley embarked on a journey not only to unlock the secrets of Davey’s life, but his own.
Price: $17.00
Pages: 480
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Imprint: Grove Press
Publication Date:
13 December 2016
Trim Size: 8.25 X 5.38 in
ISBN: 9780802125859
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
A finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize
A Publishers Weekly and Economist best book of the year
“The Zanzibar Chest is a many-legged hybrid. In part it is a wrenching account of African horrors, particularly those of Somalia and Rwanda . . . [it] is also a loving, often evocative account of East Africa where the author grew up . . . An unassailable mix of irony, vainglory, passionate sympathy and despair.”—New York Times
“An extraordinary and heartbreaking book, the finest account of a war correspondent’s psychic wracking since Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and the best white writing from Africa in many, many years.”—Rian Malan, author of My Traitor’s Heart
“A masterpiece.”—Spectator (UK)
“A brilliant portrait, fond but candid, of the ‘hacks’ who chase dramatic stories in exotic and scary places—‘the good times, the friendship, intensity, fear, sense of purpose, the sheer escapism of it all’—but declines at all turns to lapse into sentimentality.”—Washington Post
“A tale of furious adrenaline.”—Christian Science Monitor
"Slam-bang adventure and shimmering poetry. It is hilarious, orgiastically bawdy, poignantly romantic, gory as war itself, and populated with a census-sized number of vivid personalities. All that—plus informative and dreadfully prophetic."—Washington Times
"The Zanzibar Chest is a stunning piece of work. It will reside permanently in my memory. No one should dare say the word Africa without reading it."—Jim Harrison
"A lyrical, searing memoir. Out of the ashes of . . . misbegotten hopes, Hartley has fashioned a mesmerizing story of pain and loss."—Newsweek
"A startlingly refreshing perspective on the political, social, and cultural impact of British colonialism in Africa and Arabia . . . putting a contemporary face on historic colonialism with an accuracy and veracity seldom seen in Western critiques."—Booklist
"A profoundly moving masterpiece . . . This is much, much more than a book about war reporting. It is an extraordinary tapestry of friendships, love affairs, betrayals, and murders that finally come together to give us an intimate and epic portrait of Africa in the twentieth century."—Hossein Amini
"Thrillingly charged with an undercurrent of passion."—Salon
"A work of tremendous candor and vigor . . . a book that is impossible to forget."—Aminatta Forna, author of The Hired Man
"An outrageously brave and anguished heart disgorging the never-inert legacies of colonialism."—Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
A Publishers Weekly and Economist best book of the year
“The Zanzibar Chest is a many-legged hybrid. In part it is a wrenching account of African horrors, particularly those of Somalia and Rwanda . . . [it] is also a loving, often evocative account of East Africa where the author grew up . . . An unassailable mix of irony, vainglory, passionate sympathy and despair.”—New York Times
“An extraordinary and heartbreaking book, the finest account of a war correspondent’s psychic wracking since Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and the best white writing from Africa in many, many years.”—Rian Malan, author of My Traitor’s Heart
“A masterpiece.”—Spectator (UK)
“A brilliant portrait, fond but candid, of the ‘hacks’ who chase dramatic stories in exotic and scary places—‘the good times, the friendship, intensity, fear, sense of purpose, the sheer escapism of it all’—but declines at all turns to lapse into sentimentality.”—Washington Post
“A tale of furious adrenaline.”—Christian Science Monitor
"Slam-bang adventure and shimmering poetry. It is hilarious, orgiastically bawdy, poignantly romantic, gory as war itself, and populated with a census-sized number of vivid personalities. All that—plus informative and dreadfully prophetic."—Washington Times
"The Zanzibar Chest is a stunning piece of work. It will reside permanently in my memory. No one should dare say the word Africa without reading it."—Jim Harrison
"A lyrical, searing memoir. Out of the ashes of . . . misbegotten hopes, Hartley has fashioned a mesmerizing story of pain and loss."—Newsweek
"A startlingly refreshing perspective on the political, social, and cultural impact of British colonialism in Africa and Arabia . . . putting a contemporary face on historic colonialism with an accuracy and veracity seldom seen in Western critiques."—Booklist
"A profoundly moving masterpiece . . . This is much, much more than a book about war reporting. It is an extraordinary tapestry of friendships, love affairs, betrayals, and murders that finally come together to give us an intimate and epic portrait of Africa in the twentieth century."—Hossein Amini
"Thrillingly charged with an undercurrent of passion."—Salon
"A work of tremendous candor and vigor . . . a book that is impossible to forget."—Aminatta Forna, author of The Hired Man
"An outrageously brave and anguished heart disgorging the never-inert legacies of colonialism."—Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
Aidan Hartley was born in 1965 and brought up in East Africa. He read English at Oxford and studied politics at London University. He joined Reuters as a foreign correspondent and worked in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Russia. He now writes a column for the Spectator (UK). He lives with his family in Kenya.