Trillion Dollar Aid
1 April 2009
Dead aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa.
Les fous d'Afrique
1 September 2008
Africa: Altered states, ordinary miracles
Beware - Africa can be addictive, warns Richard Dowden. What's more, he adds, it can drive you into the ranks of what the French call les fous d'Afrique - those who are driven mad by the continent.
Guerrillas & Giraffes
10 May 2007
'I was a racist,' writes Lauren St John, looking back on her upbringing on a Rhodesian farm during the death throes of white rule. 'A child and a product of my environment, yes, but still a racist.' That seems a hard judgement. After all, many of the experiences on wich she bases her memoirs happened during her pre-adolescent years; indeed, she was barely fourteen when the country's guerrilla was ended, and independent Zimbabwe was born.
'The Soul of the White Ant', Eugène Marais
19 February 2007
It was a sunny day in Rhodesia when the men came to kill the queen. I was 5 years old, and allowed to watch. The gang wielded pick-heads that sliced deep into the soil, just next to the wall of our house, in the small Midlands town of Gwelo.
Zulu Worrier
30 September 2006
When 11-year-old Martine Allen, orphaned and forlon, leaves London and arrives in Cape Town, a passenger "reaches out a damp pink paw" to pat her on the shoulder: "Cheer up love. You're in Africa now."