Thursday, January 31, 2008

Tim Butcher's top 10 books about Congo

Tim Butcher's first book, Blood River - A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart, uses his expedition across the Congo to tell the region's turbulent history.

He named his top 10 books about Congo for the Guardian.

One title on Butcher's list:
The Catastrophist, Ronan Bennett (1998)

A sexy, moody novel set around a defining moment in modern African history; the 1961 death of Patrice Lumumba, the man many Congolese view as their Nelson Mandela. Unlike the South African leader, Lumumba was not jailed but murdered. He was half beaten to death before being shot against a termite mound, buried, disinterred and dissolved in barrels of mining acid. Washington's fingerprints were all over a political assassination that condemned the Congo to decades of dictatorship.
Read about all ten of Tim Butcher's picks.

--Marshal Zeringue