Product Description

An extraordinary account of Pedro Rosa Mendes's journey across Africa in 1997 - 6000 miles from the west to the east coast, from Angola to Mozambique - on trains with no windows, no doors, no seats, on wrecks of trucks and buses, on boats and motorcycles. In war-torn Angola, a country where the landmines outnumber the people, Mendes finds long lines of villagers waiting for shock treatment to neutralize the phantom pain in amputated limbs, an apothecary's tent purveying boiled mucumbi bark to combat scurvy lesions in the mouth, and trains crowded with people eating salted fish and drinking beer, swapping tales of local sorcerers who can turn into snakes. He interviews international relief workers and corrupt local officials, widows and orphans, soldiers and survivors, piecing together a rich portrait no history or travel book can match.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79968 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-18
• Binding: Paperback
• 321 pages

Sunday-Times
‘A prodigiously talented young Portuguese writer…'

Daily Telegraph
‘Mendes has an instinctively intellectual response to his experience-more Rimbaud than Rambo…a poignant book’

Guardian
‘A winsome, bittersweet account…obviously the work of a highly talented, sensitive writer’

Customer Reviews

Synopsis from back cover
Pedro Rosa Mendes, a prizewinning journalist, decides to travel across Africa, from Angola to Mozambique. His journey through these two former Portuguese colonies, devastated by twenty years of civil war, is fraught with danger and obstacles. Along the way he meets a fascinating miscellany of characters: guerillas and soldiers, international relief workers and corrupt local officials, widows and orphans, fishermen and refugees. Their stories mingle with his in this extraodinary journey....