Customer Reviews

The Black Heart: A Voyage into Central Africa (Armchair Traveller Series)

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Normally I would not take the time for a review but when I looked for his other books and found no reviews I thought I would do him and readers a favor. Hyland is an excellent writer and he has done a fine job of blending his trip to West Africa in the 80's with the prior accounts of his friends, relatives and many others, including most notably the famous novelist Conrad, going back well into the 19th century. This is one of the rare cases where the cover blurb is accurate: "Paul Hyland skillfully interweaves mythology, history, literature and contemporary reportage into an intensely vivid and powerful experience." Many of the extracts of older works remind us that robbery, murder, slavery, mutilation and cannibalism were common in much of the continent up to the end of the 19th century and that then, as now, unpleasant and often life threatening diseases are a normal part of daily life. But Hyland is also a poet and there and many passages portraying the beauty and otherworldliness of Africa that compensate. It is absorbing reading and makes me want to get his other books.