In the winter of 2006, English-born Chris Harvie and his travelling companions commenced a 28 000 km road trip around Africa which would become the subject of the travelogue, Do NOT Take this Road to El-Karama.
The travellers meandered through Botswana, Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zanzibar, Malawi and Namibia. Upon his return, Harvie bought and restored a historical house in Graaff-Reinet, where he wrote this book. Besides fulfilling his duties as hotelier, Harvie writes on food and travel on a freelance basis for the Sunday Times.
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Tired of the African tales of misery with which we find ourselves bombarded every day, new author Chris Harvie sets out to find the good news on an epic 28 000-kilometre journey between his home outside the Kruger National Park and the Nile River in Uganda, traversing eight African countries: Botswana, Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zanzibar, Malawi and Namibia.
The result is the delightfully entertaining travelogue, Do NOT Take this Road to El-Karama.
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At the Johannesburg launch of Sihle Khumalo’s Dark Continent, My Black Arse the author shared the delights of the travels he embarked upon to celebrate his 30th birthday: he took himself on a three-month Cape-to-Cairo jaunt.
“It had always been a dream to experience Africa for myself,” said Khumalo. “It had also always been a dream to write a book.” He left his fiancée and their 18-month-old child behind and ventured on the fabled and fabulous route, travelling as a backpacker, by public transport only, spending upwards of $50 per day.
“My friends wanted to know if I’d won the lottery. They said it didn’t make sense for me to resign from my job and leave my fiancée and baby behind.”
Most of his trip was, indeed, fabulous. In particular the first half, leading up to Nairobi, where Khumalo experienced quad-biking on ancient Namibian dunes and the thrill of microliting over the Victoria Falls, and encountered the soul-searching that results after visits to historical sites where, for instance, slaves were whipped and traded.
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As Managing Director of Random House South Africa, it gives me great pleasure to announce our association with a work of monumental achievement; I’m honoured to be the first to reveal that renowned South African historian and University of Pretoria professor, Charles van Onselen, has unmasked the world’s most notorious serial killer, London’s Jack the Ripper – after more than a hundred years of speculation about the murders.
In his book The Fox & the Flies – the World of Joseph Silver, Racketeer and Psychopath, published today, van Onselen produces compelling evidence that points to the killer being a man who went by the name Joseph Silver – a trader in “white slavery” who fled from Poland during the anti-Jewish pogroms of the late 19th century.
Silver spent years running brothels in London, Cape Town and Johannesburg, and was part of a white slave network that spanned the Atlantic World.
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