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The Front Line: A Journey to Southern Africa
Publisher
:
Quai Voltaire
Parution date
:
2010
EAN
:
9782876530171
Number of pages
:
229
Description
This journal describes a trip to places and with people who could broaden our worlds and increase our sense of what can be seen and learned, if only we would really dare to go. Luckily, Rolin takes us with him. The book is written with an appealing combination of realism and fantasy that is the essence of any journey into the unknown.
A voyage Jean Rolin made, in 1987, along the southern coast of Africa, is the basis of Front Line: A Journey to Southern Africa. The author speaks in his own voice, presenting himself as a mocking and disoriented traveler who follows local events without ever becoming really involved. And then he meets people who involve and empower him. There is Robert, a tired revolutionary from Zanzibar; Ned and Joan, white farmers afraid to step outside of their gated farm in Zimbabwe; and an Indian prostitute, “semigoddess” of Durban whom the author dreams of setting free from prostitution. Rolin makes not only people come to life but also the breathless beauty of the scenery—the vivid green of tea plantations, the streetscapes of urban chaos, and the heavy breath of the wild animals in the African night.
Author
Jean Rolin : Jean Rolin, born in 1949, is a journalist and a writer. He is the winner of many prizes, including the Albert Londres prize for journalism, and his novel L’organisation received the Médicis award in 1996. He is the author of numerous acclaimed works of fiction, including Zones (Gallimard, 1995), L’explosion de la durite (P.O.L, 2007; recipient of the French Voices Grant), and Un chien mort après lui (P.O.L., 2009). His novel Chrétiens (P.O.L, 2003) was published in English as Christians in Palestine by IG Publishers in 2006.
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