Product Description

A compulsively readable account of an African country now virtually inaccessible to the outside world and what is perhaps one of the most daring and adventurous journeys a journalist has made in recent years

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk

JOHN LE CARRE

Quite superb…..a masterpiece

WILLIAM BOYD

Tim Butcher's extraordinary, audacious journey through the Congo is worthy of the great 19th century explorers. Completely enthralling but also a thoughtful and sobering portrait of modern Africa

ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

A remarkable, fascinating book by a courageous and perceptive writer. One of the most exciting books to emerge from Africa in recent years.

THE SUNDAY TIMES

Tim Butcher's book is the latest in a long line, running through Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, VS Nai-paul… his account of a hair-rising trip from east to west, against all advice, by motorbike and then river boat, is gripping and harshly informative…

MAX HASTINGS

Blood River represents a remarkable marriage of travelogue and history, which deserves to make Tim Butcher a star for his prose, as well as his courage.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

From his adventure he has plundered a wealth of terrific stories, and survived to recite a rosary of unstinting horror.

FERGAL KEANE

This is a terrific book, an adventure story about a journey of great bravery in one of the world's most dangerous places. It keeps the heart beating and the attention fixed from beginning to end.

HATCHARDS

…unputdownable…

GILES FODEN

An intrepid adventure... Tim Butcher has followed in the footsteps of Stanley and Conrad. It takes a lot of guts to yomp through the Congo and he obviously has plenty of those. But it is the wit and passion of the writing which keeps you engrossed.

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

..stirring and thought-provoking.

AESTHETICA MAGAZINE

….a remarkable travelogue of exquisite proportions…. highly emotive, historical and personal…Butcher's elegant style demands the reader's attention…….Blood River is nothing short of a modern-day masterpiece.

WANDERLUST

What makes Blood River such a compelling read is the fact that the journey becomes an exercise in mental terror, the author skilfully conveying the exhaustion of six weeks on tenterhooks, wondering what might happen just around the next bend.

THOMAS PAKENHAM

Tim Butcher deserves a medal for this crazy feat. I marvel at his courage and his empathy with the unfortunate Congolese...

ESQUIRE

…gripping…

TRAVEL AFRICA

The past meets present in this enthralling travelogue through the depths of the Congo.

Telegraph
`Tim Butcher is an engaging and honest guide...this remains gripping throughout; informative, gruesome and exciting at once.'

The Independent
'book of a lifetime'

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Customer Reviews

Engaging but ultimately unfulfilling
This is a page turner, no doubt. The details of his journey are mildly interesting, the people he meets much more so. But there are better books on the DRC and much of this feels over familiar and repetitious. Butcher writes well enough but lacks the ability to convey a deeper understanding. He aint no Kapucinski. But a worthy effort and hats off to him for meeting such a daunting challenge. More than I've ever managed. But, hey, I'm just an interested but slightly disappointed reader.

Somewhat interesting
I had high expectations for this book. The Congo is a hot African topic. There were certainly intersting segments, mainly the people Butcher encounters and the deplorable state of the Congo. There was n othing new really from his histrocial references. Much of the book seemed familiar to me and then I realized why after reading his bibliography; I had read most of his source books. Butcher frequently expresses his terror in the book (which is why I am surprised that he was so often described as "intrepid" by reviewers). I can't blame him but after reading for the umpteenth time how scared he was I couldn't help feeling it detracted from the book. For a really intrepd African traveller I recommend the books by the great Polish journalist (who spent over 30 years in Africa): Ryszard Kapuscinski. Especially his book "The Shadow of the Sun".

Is this man mad?
Initially, Tim Butcher's account of his "insanely dangerous" trip through the Congo raises the question why? Why put yourself through the very real risks of being captured or killed by the numerous rebel groups that infest the country? Why endure the mind-numbing boredom of hundreds and hundreds of kilometres on the back of motorcycles negotiating stiflingly hot jungle tracks? Why bother to retrace Stanley's already well documented expedition down the Congo river? Is this man mad?... certainly most of those he meets on this very strange journey think so.

But, mad or not, what he discovers makes for fascinating reading as he and we are taken into the heart of what has become an unbelievably shocking world... one that has degenerated in 50 years from ruthlessly harsh colonial discipline & order to complete and apparently irreversible anarchy. The roads are gone, the railways are gone, the buildings have been consumed by the jungle; there is no law and little or no administrative structure; towns have no electricity, clean water or medicine; bribery, theft and casual violence are rampant; people live in constant fear of raids from rebel groups, and hundreds of thousands are killed each year simply because they are in the wrong tribe or the wrong place. Sure, there are other third world countries in such a terrible condition but few with the huge natural resources and riches of the Congo, few where this state of affairs has existed for so long, and few that receive so little attention from the rest of the world.

Critics of the book suggest that the picture he paints is over-stated and that his grasp of the Congo's history is flawed - unless you or they are mad enough to emulate his trip who knows? But he's been around in enough of the world's trouble-spots to draw a measure over what he sees and, while his writing is less than tight in places and his understandable desire to "keep in the background" means that his discussions with the people he meets on the way are often cursory, the snapshots of life he returns with are vivid enough to make you question much more than his sanity in what is, in the end, a revealing and harrowingly thought-provoking account of one man's gruelling trek through a totally lost country.