Queen's Classics
3 total works
Thirty years ago Laurens van der Post led an expedition across the Kalahari Desert in search of some last remnant of the pure aboriginal Bushmen of southern Africa. As well as a spiritual and physical exploration, it is a portrayal of the Bushmen's way of life - their customs, music making and intimate participation in the world of nature - and in contrast, the fate they have suffered at the hands of their human persecutors. This book was originally published in 1958. For this new edition, van der Post has written a long account of the Bushman's final Kalahari home and has collaborated with the photographer, David Coulson, whose visions and feeling for Africa he feels match his own. Dramatic desert scenes and powerful rock-paintings are combined with authentic images of stone-age Bushman life. Laurens van der Post was awarded the CBE and was knighted in 1981. Since 1949 he has taken part in many expeditions to Africa and is author of 21 books including "The Heart of the Hunter", in which he continues the Bushman story started here. David Coulson has two previous books to his credit, "Mountain Odyssey in Southern Africa" and "Different Drums: Reflections on a Changing Africa".
Flamingo Feather, which Laurens van der Post dedicated to the 'fast vanishing Africa' of his boyhood, is a story of adventure - adventure unfolded in the great tradition of story-telling. It is the tale of two white hunters - one old, experienced and wise, one young and resolute - who suspect that something evil is being prepared on a vast scale in their country and who, with little to guide them, set out to track down its source. In the unfolding of their story, the immense scene of bush, forest, jungle, lake and mountain, the untamed wildlife and vivid animal beings, and the background mind and culture of the indigenous people in all their archaic reality, are evoked as never before. Indeed so deeply does the story draw on Laurens van der Post's knowledge of the country, so directly does it touch on vital elements in African life, that it carries the conviction of an authentic personal experience. Africa itself lies at the heart of the story, Africa as it has been and as it may yet become.