Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari
Description
Contains Photos, Bibliography, Index
$39.95
ISBN 0-00-200670-7
DDC 813'.52
Author
Publisher
Year
Contributor
David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.
Review
Ernest Hemingway had a lifelong love affair with East Africa. His first
safari produced a major book, Green Hills of Africa, while his second
safari, 20 years later, led to a sprawling African journal published
posthumously as True and First Light. One of Hemingway’s finest works,
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” tells the story of a self-doubting
writer on safari who is dying of gangrene and burdened by the
realization that he has frittered away his literary talent on a life of
luxury and will now never produce anything as radiant or enduring as
Mount Kilimanjaro’s peak.
In this book, Christopher Ondaatje, the author of seven books
(including Sindh Revisited, a biography of the great explorer Sir
Richard Burton), makes highly personal journeys into both the physical
and the literary aspects of Hemingway’s safaris in an effort to
separate, as far as is possible, the man from the myth. He shows us why
Hemingway sought to link artistic pursuit with immortality and why
Africa in particular allowed for an exploration of that theme. He also
provides new information on the fiction itself, Hemingway’s
inspirations and his women, and the disastrous conclusion to his last
safari.
Meticulously researched and superbly illustrated, Hemingway in Africa
is a riveting and brilliant portrait of a man Ondaatje appears to
simultaneously admire and detest.