In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo

Description

Mr Kurtz, the colonial white master, brought evil to the remote upper reaches of the Congo River. A century after Conrad's Heart of Darkness was first published, Michela Wrong revisits the Congo during the turbulent era of Mobutu Sese Seko. From the heart of Africa comes grotesque confusion: pink-lipsticked rebel soldiers mingle with track-suited secret policemen in hotels where fin de siecle dinner parties are ploughing through vintage wines rather than leave them to the new regime. Congo, the African country richest in natural resources, has institutionalised kleptomania. Everyone is one the take. Someone has even swiped one of the uranium rods from the country's only nuclear reactor. Having presided over unprecedented looting of the country's wealth, Mobutu, like Kurtz, retreated deep within the jungle to his palace of marble floors and gold taps. A hundred years on and nothing has changed.

Michela Wrong is a distinguished international journalist, and has worked as a foreign correspondent covering events across the African continent for Reuters, the BBC and the Financial Times. Based on her experiences in Africa, In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz, her first book, won the PEN James Sterne Prize for non-fiction. Her book I Didn't Do It for You (2006) builds upon her shocking experiences, and focuses on the African nation of Eritrea. In 2015, she published Borderlines, her first novel. Michela Wrong is based in London.

'A stylish account of the absurd as well as the tragic.' Sunday Times 'This book will become a classic.' Economist