THE IMMINENT RAINS: A Visit Among the Last Pioneers of Africa

by John Heminway ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 1968

John Heminway has traveled Africa since he was sixteen, here explores its recesses for the exotic transplants who came and stayed. They include Lathan Leslie-Moore, to whom civilization had ended in 1914 and who retreated to an island off Tanganyika, from which country he proceeded to secede; Sir Stewart Gore Browne who built a feudal estate in the wilds of North Rhodesia and has outlived its day; or, in the interior of Bechuanaland, Wilmot, crocodile hunter with thirty thousand notches on his gun; on the Luangwa, Uys, a game warden who has asked his body to be left in the bush for the hyenas and jackals, or Erica Crichley, who lends her style to the back country. Take tea with Trevor Huddleston at Masasi, a shot with lonides the snake man, or explore the idiosyncracies of the White Fathers and the nature of missionaries. In Kenya there are Sir Michael Blundell, the farmer, Tony Dyer, President of the East African Hunter's Association, the Adamsons. Heminway pictures Africa as picking up its many legs ""like some mythological monster,"" clumsily making its way to the edge of the abyss. But he has caught it: this is unusual (even when dealing with usual subjects such as the Adamsons), fresh, and like Africa, timeless a pleasure.

Pub Date: June 20, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION