From Publishers Weekly
"You'll have a terrible time," one diplomat tells Theroux upon discovering the prolific writer's plans to hitch a ride hundreds of miles along a desolate road to Nairobi instead of taking a plane. "You'll have some great stuff for your book." That seems to be the strategy for Theroux's extended "experience of vanishing" into the African continent, where disparate incidents reveal Theroux as well as the people he meets. At times, he goes out of his way to satisfy some perverse curmudgeonly desire to pick theological disputes with Christian missionaries. But his encounters with the natives, aid workers and occasional tourists make for rollicking entertainment, even as they offer a sobering look at the social and political chaos in which much of Africa finds itself. Theroux occasionally strays into theorizing about the underlying causes for the conditions he finds, but his cogent insights are well integrated. He doesn't shy away from the literary aspects of his tale, either, frequently invoking Conrad and Rimbaud, and dropping in at the homes of Naguib Mahfouz and Nadine Gordimer at the beginning and end of his trip. He also returns to many of the places where he lived and worked as a Peace Corps volunteer and teacher in the 1960s, locations that have cropped up in earlier novels. These visits fuel the book's ongoing obsession with his approaching 60th birthday and his insistence that he isn't old yet. As a travel guide, Theroux can both rankle and beguile, but after reading this marvelous report, readers will probably agree with the priest who observes, "Wonderful people. Terrible government. The African story." Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Theroux groans his way through Africa; the first single trip since The Pillars of Hercules. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Theroux returns to East Africa--he taught in Uganda and Malawi in the 1960s--both because he wants to see if there is hope behind the horrific headlines and because he wants to drop off the map for a while. He discovers that in Ethiopia the ivory trade is alive and well; in Uganda, Makerere University still hasn't recovered from the despotism of Idi Amin; and in Zimbabwe, absurd land seizures continue unabated. The countries are poorer than he last saw them, while beset by the same intractable problems of corruption and violence. Most men he meets have spent time in prison. Besides frequent rumination on what it means to be a traveler, readers know they can expect a stimulating exploration of history, geography, politics, and society from Theroux, an intellectual with dirty fingernails who's expert at getting the first-person story. He can be caustic toward less-enlightened travelers who want simply to enjoy themselves, and to aid workers, whom he sees as universally self-serving. It's a shame that someone who strives so mightily to understand Africans can be so dismissive of his own people. A traveler who sympathizes with the downtrodden would do well to remember his own privileges of time, money, and education. Nonetheless, his book contains page after page of eye-opening and insightful observations. And for those of us who might squander our two weeks off on a predictable cruise, Theroux's vantage point from the dusty road is very useful indeed. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Still the dean of this genre, the irascible Theroux is the ideal companion for armchair travel.


Review
Still the dean of this genre, the irascible Theroux is the ideal companion for armchair travel.


Book Description
In the travel-writing tradition that made Paul Theroux"s reputation, Dark Star Safari is a rich and insightful book whose itinerary is Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town: down the Nile, through Sudan and Ethiopia, to Kenya, Uganda, and ultimately to the tip of South Africa. Going by train, dugout canoe, "chicken bus," and cattle truck, Theroux passes through some of the most beautiful — and often life-threatening — landscapes on earth. This is travel as discovery and also, in part, a sentimental journey. Almost forty years ago, Theroux first went to Africa as a teacher in the Malawi bush. Now he stops at his old school, sees former students, revisits his African friends. He finds astonishing, devastating changes wherever he goes. "Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it," he writes, "hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you can"t tell the politicians from the witch doctors. Not that Africa is one place. It is an assortment of motley republics and seedy chiefdoms. I got sick, I got stranded, but I was never bored. In fact, my trip was a delight and a revelation." Seeing firsthand what is happening across Africa, Theroux is as obsessively curious and wittily observant as always, and his readers will find themselves on an epic and enlightening journey. Dark Star Safari is one of his bravest and best books.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Fans of Paul Theroux's witty, sharply observed travel accounts will not be disappointed with this dense tome describing the hilarity and heartbreak of a trip through Africa. Beginning in Cairo and ending in Cape Town, this renowned chronicler gleefully engages everyone he finds, from the poorest of villagers to the most corrupt bureaucrats. The mystery, sweetness, strangeness, and horror of this complicated continent filters through Theroux's trademark wryness, giving us a laugh when it gets too heavy. As he travels overland in the creakiest of vehicles on the most terrible roads, one can't help but admire this author for chasing down the stories of Africa we won't ever hear about on the evening news.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances. Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people, and "a vivid portrayal of the secret sweetness, the hidden vitality, and the long-patient hope that lies just beneath the surface" (Rocky Mountain News). In a new postscript, Theroux recounts the dramatic events of a return to Africa to visit Zimbabwe.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

As Emerson went on to say, a writer engages despair by writing about it; ''in calamity, he finds new materials.'' With Dark Star Safari, Theroux reports his first trip into the last leg of life's voyage, and sends back a brooding and apocalyptic report. — Rand Richards Cooper

The Washington Post

Theroux is best at shorthand dissections of trends that have already become obvious. In no other book will one find such entertaining and penetrating comments about the ironies, as well as the historic failure, of foreign aid. — Robert D. Kaplan

Book Magazine - Chris Barsanti

"All news out of Africa is bad. It made me want to go there," Theroux writes in his thirty-eighth book, which describes his yearlong journey from Cairo to Cape Town by creaky train, ferry and rattletrap bus. Back in the 1960s, Theroux worked as a teacher and Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda and Malawi. Recently, the headlines depicting war and famine there awoke in him the desire to return to the continent. "Nothing was new," Theroux writes of Africa, "except that there were many more people, grubbier buildings, more litter, fewer trees, more poachers, less game." By the end of the trip, Theroux seems more concerned with the arrogant aid workers who constantly zoom past him in glistening white Land Rovers, refusing to give him a ride.

Publishers Weekly

"You'll have a terrible time," one diplomat tells Theroux upon discovering the prolific writer's plans to hitch a ride hundreds of miles along a desolate road to Nairobi instead of taking a plane. "You'll have some great stuff for your book." That seems to be the strategy for Theroux's extended "experience of vanishing" into the African continent, where disparate incidents reveal Theroux as well as the people he meets. At times, he goes out of his way to satisfy some perverse curmudgeonly desire to pick theological disputes with Christian missionaries. But his encounters with the natives, aid workers and occasional tourists make for rollicking entertainment, even as they offer a sobering look at the social and political chaos in which much of Africa finds itself. Theroux occasionally strays into theorizing about the underlying causes for the conditions he finds, but his cogent insights are well integrated. He doesn't shy away from the literary aspects of his tale, either, frequently invoking Conrad and Rimbaud, and dropping in at the homes of Naguib Mahfouz and Nadine Gordimer at the beginning and end of his trip. He also returns to many of the places where he lived and worked as a Peace Corps volunteer and teacher in the 1960s, locations that have cropped up in earlier novels. These visits fuel the book's ongoing obsession with his approaching 60th birthday and his insistence that he isn't old yet. As a travel guide, Theroux can both rankle and beguile, but after reading this marvelous report, readers will probably agree with the priest who observes, "Wonderful people. Terrible government. The African story." (Mar.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.