Keith B. Richburg

3.75 stars

The author is a black reporter, and in the early 1990s, represented The Washington Post in Africa. He was excited to go, to follow his “roots” in Africa. In his three years there, he experienced the civil war and famine in Somalia, the genocide in Rwanda, the many corrupt authoritarian and dictator “governments”, kids in the streets bearing AK-47s. He thought about his African-ness vs his American-ness, and came home (as many reporters in Africa do) beaten down.

The first part of the book is more about his childhood. He grew up in inner-city Detroit in the 1960s and 70s. Initially, he was a minority in his neighbourhood, but that changed. While he continued to go to school with mostly white kids and had friends there, he hated choosing “sides” between his white school friends, and his black neighbourhood friends.

The book included specific chapters on Somalia and Rwanda, and later on, South Africa (and the relative success of the introduction of democracy there vs the mess of it in the rest of Africa). He also has lots of examples throughout the rest of the book on the health care and AIDS in Africa, and plenty on the politics and governments of various countries.

I found the country-specific chapters more interesting, as well as the health care one, rather than the political chapters. I think it was because there are just too many names to remember and who is related to which country/city, etc. I also found the author’s own thoughts and introspection on what he encountered in Africa and his own feelings about being black and being American vs having those African roots. I also found his own biographical details quite interesting.

The edition I read came out in 2009, though it was originally published in 1997. So, this one had an additional foreword, written shortly after Obama was elected president.… (mehr)

5 stars supposedly means "I loved it." Well that's a hard thing to say about this book because that sounds too trite. It's an extraordinary work of journalism and was a real eye-opener for me. It is hard to read at times because of the violence, harshness and cruelty depicted. Yet Richburg lived through these nightmares. His perspective, as a black man, is invaluable. But I wonder if my positive reaction to his book is just a sigh of relief - a "permission" to feel racist? A very thought-provoking book. It sparked a great deal of discussion among our book club members. I highly recommend it.… (mehr)