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The anticipated final trek through Africa that’s garnered all starred advance reviews
THE LAST TRAIN TO ZONA VERDE: My Ultimate Safari (on sale May 7, 2013) captures Paul Theroux’s travels through little-visited western Africa, which he calls his last journey to the continent that nurtured his thirst for the world. All early reviews are starred.
Theroux’s odyssey takes him along the western spine of sub-Saharan Africa, from South Africa’s Cape Town through Cape Province, then north to Namibia. In Botswana he enjoys an elephant-back safari before venturing back through Namibia into Angola, almost to the Congo, reaching terrain seen often in the news but rarely penetrated by outsiders. In some ways the people he meets seem timeless, oblivious to fiscal crises unfolding in Europe and the U.S. But he is reminded that Africa is never exactly as it appears, that it is always shifting underfoot.
“Ever since childhood, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it,” Theroux wrote once. He arrived in Malawi as a 22-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in 1963, and returned to Africa years later to write what would become a national bestseller, Dark Star Safari.
Theroux’s new confrontation of the continent yields its own revelations. After 2,500 arduous miles toward the green zone of Angola’s bush country – or “zona verde” – he ends his journey earlier than planned. He chronicles the decision with forthrightness in a chapter called “What Am I Doing Here?”
Paul Theroux’s highly acclaimed travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. His novels include The Lower River, Hotel Honolulu and The Mosquito Coast.
THE LAST TRAIN TO ZONA VERDE: My Ultimate Safari by Paul Theroux
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt * On Sale: May 7, 2013 * $27 hardcover
ISBN 9780618839339 * Also available as an e-book
Contact: Simmi Aujla * 212-420-5824 * Simmi.Aujla@hmhpub.com
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