CALL AFRICA 999

by John Peer Nugent ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1965

This is a record of the author's three years as Newsweek's correspondent. It is as colorful and as varied as the magazine he wrote for. His accounts of narrow escapes from anarchistic soldiers are harrowing. He also possesses that special bravery--some might call it gall, or even blindness--which permits him to call Africans interned without food in a Katanga prison, who turn to cannibalism to survive, ""People Eaters."" Such vulgarity is matched by his report on white South Africa. That section is so similar in tone to ""understanding"" reports by white Americans of the early Hitler regime that the viscerally sympathetic treatment of the black South Africans comes as a surprise. This ambivalence seems to be a companion to an incapacity For political analysis beyond that of Cold War platitudes. While he chides academics for descending upon Africa with Solutions, Nugent offers only personal experiences and fails to cast much light upon the Dark Continent. The reader may give him his time, but Will receive only transient rewards in return.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1965

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION