Dark Star Safari - Misplaced Pages

2002 travek book by Paul Theroux

Dark Star Safari
First edition
Author	Paul Theroux
Language	English
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin
Publication date	2002
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)

Theroux describes his reasons for revisiting Africa for the book

from the BBC programme Bookclub, September 1, 2013.

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Dark Star Safari (2002) is a written account of a trip taken by American author Paul Theroux from Cairo, Egypt, to Cape Town, South Africa, via trains, buses, cars, and armed convoy. Theroux had lived in Africa as a young and idealistic early member of the Peace Corps and part of the reason for this trip was to assess the impact on Africa of the many years of aid from Western countries. His assessment is generally critical of the long-term impact of aid programs.

Throughout the duration of the trip Theroux describes the writing of an erotic novella. This novella was eventually published in 2003, among a collection of short stories, as "The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro".

Reception

The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": Times, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Independent On Sunday, and Spectator reviews under "Love It" and Daily Telegraph and Guardian reviews under "Ok" and Independent review under "Rubbish". Globally, Complete Review saying on the consensus "No consensus and quite a few objections, but most were quite taken by it".

References

"Paul Theroux". Bookclub. September 1, 2013. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
Ryle, John (November 2, 2002). "Aid memoie". The Guardian.
Cooper, Rand Richards (30 March 2003). "Get Me Out of Africa". The New York Times.
"Books of the moment: What the papers say". The Daily Telegraph. 9 Nov 2002. p. 64. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
"Dark Star Safari". Complete Review. 2023-10-04. Retrieved 2023-10-04.

External links

Booknotes interview with Theroux on Dark Star Safari, May 18, 2003.
Official site
Rossouw, Henk. "Classic review: Dark Star Safari", The Christian Science Monitor, 27 September 2009.
Busby, Margaret, "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town, by Paul Theroux", The Independent, October 26, 2002.
"Dark Star Safari", Kirkus Reviews, 15 December 2002.
Gerhart, Gail M. "Dark Star Safari: Overland From Cairo to Cape Town", Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003.

v t e Paul Theroux
Novels	Waldo (1967) Jungle Lovers (1971) Saint Jack (1973) The Family Arsenal (1976) The Mosquito Coast (1981) Doctor Slaughter (1984) O-Zone (1986) My Secret History (1989) Millroy the Magician (1993) Kowloon Tong (1997) Blinding Light (2006)
Travel writing	The Great Railway Bazaar (1975) The Old Patagonian Express (1979) The Kingdom by the Sea (1983) Riding the Iron Rooster (1988) The Happy Isles of Oceania (1992) The Pillars of Hercules (1995) Dark Star Safari (2002) Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (2008) Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads (2015) Figures in a Landscape: People and Places (2018)

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