No massacres or earthquakes, but terrific heat and the roads were terrible, the trains were derelict, forget the telephones. I was mistaken in so much-delayed, shot at, howled at, and robbed. To skip ahead, I am writing this a year later, just back from Africa, having taken my long safari and been reminded that all travel is a lesson in self-preservation. There I had lived and worked, happily, almost forty years ago, in the heart of the greenest continent. Feeling that the place was so large it contained many untold tales and some hope and comedy and sweetness, too-feeling that there was more to Africa than misery and terror-I aimed to reinsert myself in the bundu, as we used to call the bush, and to wander the antique hinterland. It made me want to go there, though not for the horror, the hot spots, the massacre-and-earthquake stories you read in the newspaper I wanted the pleasure of being in Africa again. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.ĪLL NEWS out of Africa is bad.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:ĭark star safari : overland from Cairo to Cape Town / Paul Theroux.ġ. Postscript copyright © 2004 by Paul Therouxįor information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Dark star safari review