The Zanzibar Chest: A Memoir of Love and War

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A startling refreshing perspective on the political, social, and cultural impact of British colonialism in Africa and Arabia. . . . Hartley details a fascinating odyssey that reflects on the past, present, and future of colonialism.”—Vernon Ford, Booklist Hartley uses crisp, to-the-point prose threaded with delicious, dark humor and a sense of the absurd that reaches its height as he details the bungled U.N. intervention in Somalia.”—Claudia La Rocco, The Indianapolis Star

Britain was known as “home.” Yet for us, it was a distant island, where after all these years it was still raining. It was almost entirely through BBC radio that we kept in touch with an idea of England, which was cleansed by the frequencies of short wave and my parents’ vaguely remembered sense of patriotism. England greeted us each dawn with the BBC World Service signature tune, “Lero Lero, Lilli burlero.” Wherever we were, Big Ben tolled the hour and Dad, doing his yoga while drinking his early morning tea, gazed out at our adopted landscape, at a rising desert sun, or at the fishermen punting their outrigger canoes into the surf. An epic narrative combining the literary reportage of Ryszard Kapuściński with a historical love story reminiscent of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. Hartley uses crisp, to-the-point prose threaded with delicious, dark humor and a sense of the absurd that reaches its height as he details the bungled U.N. intervention in Somalia. His accounts of bloodshed and corruption are all the more effective for his refusal to sugarcoat it. . . . In the end, one can only stand as witness, and Hartley is an eloquent one.”—Claudia La Rocco, Associated Press A deeply affecting memoir of a childhood in Africa and the continent's horrendous wars, which Hartley witnessed at first hand as a journalist in the 1990s. Shortlisted for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, this is a masterpiece of autobiographical journalism.Morocco also has its own wider tradition of painted furniture, but here, geometric patterns that often match with the architectural decoration are the norm, and the arched design is particularly popular. Old pieces are rare, but there is a flourishing reproduction industry, although the colors used tend to be brighter than the originals. Traditional Moroccan chests sometimes have curved tops, a detail that is probably the result of Spanish and Portuguese influence, particularly along the coast. Aidan Hartley, a foreign correspondent, burned-out from the horror of covering the terrifying micro wars of the 1990s, from Rwanda to Bosnia, seeks solace and solitude in the remote mountains and deserts of southern Arabia and the Yemen, following his father’s death. While there, he finds himself on the trail of the tragic story of an old friend of his father’s, who fell in love and was murdered in southern Arabia fifty years ago. As the terrible events of the past unfold, Hartley finds his own kind of deliverance. In his quest for belonging, Hartley intertwines his own war stories with the tale of Peter Davey, a romantic young British officer and friend of his father, who was murdered in Aden in 1947 and whose diaries he finds in his dead father's Zanzibar chest. There are similarities between Davey and Hartley, two white men in savage lands. But Hartley strives for a more poetic connection. He believes Davey's death represented his father's loss of innocence, just as he himself was transformed by Africa's wars. By uncovering the details of Davey's life, he hopes to connect with his father, and so with his forefathers.

Hartley always writes beautifully, though his voice changes. In an unbearably portentous introduction, he compares himself and his fellow correspondents to the "swift messengers" of Isaiah, sent "to a people terrible from their beginning". Yet the account that follows is far more plausible, wittily portraying the petty vanities of foreign correspondents. Callaghan & Newbury (recommended carrier) 07903 299810/07794 751445. Deliveries to the Home Counties and has a storage facility.Hannam’s Auctioneers Ltd reserves the right to alter these Terms and Conditions without notification to clients. The British considered Zanzibar an essentially Arab country and maintained the prevailing power structure. The office of sultan was retained (although stripped of most of its power), and Arabs, almost to the exclusion of other groups, were given opportunities for higher education and were recruited for bureaucratic posts. The chief government official during the period 1890 to 1913 was the British consul general, and from 1913 to 1963 it was the British resident. From 1926 the resident was advised by a legislative assembly. The Zanzibar Chest] is thrillingly charged with an undercurrent of passion.”—Suzy Hansen, Salon.com Once I realized this, the book (especially the chapters recounting his own first-hand experiences) became AWESOME. The sultanate of Muscat and Oman took control of the island in the early Eighteenth Century by displacing a small Portugese post. It was helpful that, with a little careful timing, there were trade winds which carried dhows from Zanzibar over to India then there were winds which would take the dhows from India to Oman and then there were winds which would complete the triangle. At each stage, the traders could earn a fortune. Over the course of the Eighteenth Century, the Sultanate of Oman became a wealthy and powerful regional power. It was more than able to withstand European encroachment and could maintain their independence.

On those flights I’d look down from the sky at takeoffs and landings and see the silhouette of our little aircraft ripple over pulverized cities, refugee camps, the acetylene-white flashes of antiaircraft fire, and countries rich only in lost hopes and broken dreams. What comes to mind when I think of that time in my life are the words of Isaiah 18, which I’d read in Gideons Bibles I’d found in dozens of seedy hotel rooms where I spent so much of my life on the road: “Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. . . . Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down.” That passage makes me think of my circle of friends, the journalists I knew in those years. We were like the swift messengers in Africa. The basic form of most of these chests is large and rectangular. Usually they are flat on top (though some are curved), so that they could be used as a bench or small table; sometimes they were built with drawers below the main compartment and, often, there was a smaller compartment inside the lid for holding valuables. The Auctioneers reserve the right to cancel any sale at any time, should they deem it necessary, this will be at Hannam’s Auctioneers Ltd discretion. Un carissimo amico del padre ha lasciato un diario del suo lungo soggiorno ad Aden e Hartley parte per ricostruirne le vicende, cercarne la memoria. Una bella storia che intreccia e collega tutte le altre.The author was a foreign correspondent in the early 1990's in Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, the Balkans, and probably other countries that I can't recall. Hartley turned 30 in 1995. He was born in Kenya and raised in England and returned to Africa after Oxford, which makes his life fascinating just with those facts alone. At all times, Hartley writes with a raw honesty about not just the horrors he witnesses, but his feelings and reactions to those events. Often, he has Schindleresque moments of 'I could have done more to help'. Other times, he shares his dad's feelings that the British should never have gone into Africa in the first place, yet having colonised, should never have then left. This constant honesty and self-reflection is refreshing. At least I get to do what they taught me in the foreign service and have drinks with a room full of mass murderers."