North of South: An African Journey

by Shiva Naipaul

Book Overview

In the 1970s Shiva Naipaul travelled to Africa, visiting Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia for several months. Through his experiences, the places he visited and his various encounters, he aimed to discover what 'liberation', 'revolution' and 'socialism' meant to the ordinary people. His journey of discovery is brilliantly documented in this intimate, comic and controversial portrayal of a continent on the brink of change.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140188266
• ISBN13: 9780140188264
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Naipaul's glance at post-Colonial Africa

Shiva Naipaul's _North of South: An African Journey_ is the most cynical book I've ever read. It is a travelogue of the author's visit to three postcolonial African countries in the 1970s: Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Naipaul is a Hindu, born in Trinidad, and he pays attention to the role (and plight) of South Asians (Hindus, Pakistanis, Sikhs, Parsees, etc) in East Africa. He also focuses on the black-white relations in Africa as well. Naipaul gives Africa and everyone involved in its affairs (whites, blacks and Asians) no credit whatsoever. Declining European colonial powers gave their African colonies political independence in the 1960s and a variety of demagogues like and Julius Nyerre in Tanzania who took power spouting third world varieties of socialism and Marxism. Despite claims of social and economic progress, Africa remains as backward as ever. Naipaul freely writes of his disgust with the countries and its deceived leadership from the first page of the book until the last. This book, like another reviewer noted below, certainly is not going to make it into a black studies program anytime soon. It is a relief from portraits of Africa that classify it as a tropical paradise, a land of innocents exploited by evil Europeans, or conversely an AIDS infested human disaster. Naipaul's cynicism shows Africa the way it really is-struggling, corrupt, deceived, but at the same time Afroca is chugging along optimistically in some areas, with idealism and occasional realism, and attempting to do as well as it can to develop itself. No dry textbook prose here; the book is short, easy to read, engaging and very well written.

Sadly neglected and misunderstood masterpiece

This is a wonderfully written book; Naipaul's proses flows effortlessly across the page, the connexion between thought and word is seemless. The comparatively small body of work Naipaul produced before his tragic early death has been neglected in favour of that of his less talented, but longer lived, brother (a Nobel Prizewinner). However in this one work, Naipaul's prosody surpasses anything produced either by his brother, or by other twentieth century travel writers like Thoreau. That said, some of the other reviews here are ludicrously jaundiced and do a disservice to the book itself. This is no crude work of 'anti-pc' nonsense (an American political term that the archly European Naipaul would have shuddered at). The prose is not illiberal (in the American sense of the term) but rather aristocratic, in the best tradition of Evelyn Waugh (the writer Naipaul most resembles). Like Waugh, Naipaul's caustic observations rip into the heart of human weakness and frailty, exposing the hypocrisy and cant from all sides. The pretensions of ghastly businessmen disgust him as much as the crudity of the black 'socialists'. Those who seek to defend either Marxism or any form of business enterprise system face Naipaul's perfectly expressed derision. I personally found Naipaul's lack of human feeling at the extent of Africa's poverty a little shocking but it is a rapturous pleasure to be so shocked.

Tragic, funny account of the Way We Were ....

North of South describes Shiva Naipaul's journey through Eastern Africa as it emerged from colonialism several decades ago. Optimism and energy prevailed alongside a blind faith in imported philosophies which pundits failed to translate meaningfully to the impoverished, illiterate masses around them. Naipaul is a witty, bold writer with a gift for sharp imagery and an uncanny radar for subtle undercurrents in human interaction - the hypocrisy of the black elite, the jittery desperation of the settlers, the paranoid clannishness of the Asians. He also vividly portrays the deepening poverty and decaying infrastructure that underscored the failure of well-intentioned socialism in Tanzania. While some racists may use it to justify their beliefs, the book is more a compassionate, humorous look at pre-industrial populations trying to forge national identities from scratch. While today's poor countries may not have to follow the painstaking, centuries-long process that western countries did, this is still a reminder that there is no shortcut to institutional development. For Africans, this nostalgic book shows how far we have come, but is also a challenge to craft a fresh vision for the long distance still left to travel.

An honest, detailed look at Africa in the late 1970's

Naipaul's trip to Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia in the late 1970's is recounted with a novelist's eye for amusing detail and a serious journalist's ability to discuss government policies and their social ramifications. It is rather difficult to find a book on Africa that is so informative, yet has no axe to grind. (Actually, the treatment of ethnic Indians in Africa is a small hatchet that Mr. Naipaul grinds occasionally.) It is a great book for those of us who like to know more about the world beyond the media glamor spots, without being told what to think about it.

Scathing? Yup. True? Ditto.

I doubt if Mr Naipaul made many friends among black Africans with this book. It's really damning. But true. And tells you more about east africa than any textbook or research paper will. I'm an Asian living in Zimbabwe and whenever my black friends ask me why Asian girls don't go out with them I give them my xerox copy of chapter 3.