Customer Reviews

Okavango Gods

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The Okavango River Delta in Botswana is about as deep into Africa as one can go. The great river empties, not into the sea, but into the Kalahari Desert, which absorbs it like a sponge. Anthony Fleischer puts you there with exciting and poetic imagery you will not forget, and you, too, will be totally absorbed. He creates authentic characters of this wondrous place, and through their senses we experience its marvelous landscape and animal inhabitants. The native Hambukushu people are portrayed through the young man Pula and his father. We are with them while they struggle to survive a mighty flood and overcome human enemies, and we learn their lore and magic. Pula's friend is Julia, the daughter of a Portuguese doctor (the Portuguese having a presence from semi-colonial days). Their unspoken love powerfully attracts while their separate cultures divide them; we learn much about these cultures as their very personal story unfolds.
Add a few outsiders, demonic or heroic, Bubi the local witch, and even a swarm of locusts. All are both tangible and symbolic. In this darkly mysterious setting, Fleischer weaves together the most personal themes and the grandest legends on the thread of a gripping adventure. In his compact novel, he at once lights up Africa for us, while respectfully leaving it impenetrably mysterious, as it must ever be. This is a wonderful and edifying story by a master of our language.