Travels in the Congo

Author: André Gide, Dorothy Bussy (Translator)
Publisher: Modern Age Books, Inc., 1937
Condition: Softcover, yellowed pages, wear and tear to cover and back, small tear on edges of some pages, needs to be handled gently
A selected review: "“Travels in the Congo” is an artifact, a strange viewfinder showing hard to access parts of Central Africa circa 1925 from the perspective of a very oddly chosen “special envoy of the Colonial Ministry.” Andre Gide (a controversial, avant-garde French playwright) is shuttled around in a Tipoye (a porter-conveyed chair about which he is often wringing his hands with guilt, “As a general rule we use our tipoyes very little, as much because we like walking as to spare our wretched bearers.”), on horseback, in various boats and sometimes, to his credit, he walks on his own feet. Gide’s entourage often exceeds seventy people forcibly requisitioned to transport the ponderous equipment of his unclear mission for less than two francs per person, per day. There is little structure or revision to Gide’s reflections—which is why the book never gathers the sort of momentum that makes something hard to put down. Now he is talking about chasing butterflies and poisoning colorful beetles, next he is reflecting on the precarious health of the over-worked and underfed men in whose company he travels, then he ruminates on the capabilities and qualities of Africans in general and often he shares, in captivating detail, the precise nature of the hospitality and celebrations that he enjoys in a tiny village, a dusty Sultanate or in a kingdom of the Cameroonian highlands. "