North of South: An African Journey [Mass Market Paperback]

Shiva Naipaul (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140048944
• ISBN-13: 978-0140048940
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,905,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An honest, detailed look at Africa in the late 1970's, October 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: North of South: An African Journey (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

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.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars African Travelogue, February 15, 2002

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: North of South: An African Journey (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

I'm trying very hard to figure out how I can review this book without coming across as an ignorant, bubble-headed liberal or a rabid racist. Hmmm... I don't think it's going to happen. North of South, by the late Shiva Naipaul, is essentially a travelogue of a trip to parts of Africa in the 1970's, specifically Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Welded to the descriptions of people and scenery are sharp observations on class, racism, government and colonialism. Naipaul's eye misses nothing during his travel, and his anecdotes are both humorous and sad. It was interesting to see that this guy is the brother of V.S. Naipaul, who recently won a Nobel Prize for Literature. Anyway, this book is not going to be found on the syllabus of any black studies classes anytime soon.

North of South reveals Africa in all of its glory: degenerate, corrupt and lazy. What really stands out is how Africans have taken Western ideas and applied them to their own situations, often with laughable results. Take the case of Tanzanian Socialism. Naipaul can barely contain a chuckle at the absurdity of this situation. Almost everyone he meets praises the administration, but almost no one has any true sense of what it's all about (to be fair, the same could be said for most nations). The corruption is truly astonishing. Bribery abounds everywhere, especially at border crossings, where tourists are routinely harassed and threatened with imprisonment if their papers aren't in order. A story in which Naipaul is conned when he gets a shoeshine is a good example. Not only does the guy ruin his shoes, he tries to overcharge him in the process. Naipaul constantly has to shell out the bucks to get even the most basic services, if he gets them at all. Hotels are run down traps, prostitution is epidemic, and beggars and the unemployed are everywhere. The few situations where something actually works are attributed to the presence of white expatriates, and even here there is the danger that the black government will step in at any minute and expel the whites.

Probably the most bothersome aspect of this book, and one that costs Naipaul a star in my review, is the bias Naipaul shows in regards to the "Asian" population in Africa. The "Asians" are actually of Indian descent, as is Naipaul. Naipaul reveals that Africans are prejudiced against these Indians and he seems to take it personally (what a surprise! Blacks can actually be racists!). Much time is spent on this problem and it opens Naipaul up to charges of retaliatory prejudice. Naipaul is much more effective when he shows how both blacks and whites have their racist attitudes, and how both races have been brought down together through the process of colonialism.

This is an obscure book that probably will never get much attention in the politically correct atmosphere of America. If you want to make a liberal's head explode, buy this book and tuck it into their stocking next Christmas. If you need a break from the multicultural crowd, this is the book for you.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Naipaul's glance at post-Colonial Africa, August 26, 2005

By 

zonaras (Jimbo's House of Pie) - See all my reviews

This review is from: North of South: An African Journey (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

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.