Tom Dreyer

Equatoria is Dreyer’s first novel to be published in English and without reading the Afrikaans it’s impossible to tell if the surreal mood is a reflection of the original or an inspired addition by the award-winning translator Michiel Heyns.

Admirers of director Werner Herzog will appreciate this book about a river trip into ‘the heart of darkness’: more ‘Aguirre Wrath of God’ than ‘Apocalypse Now’, it is set in the Belgian Congo of 1912, and follows two young English explorers in a quest for the semi-mythical Okapi.

In modern parlance the theme might be ‘what happens in Africa, stays in Africa’ – including the wildlife – but such sentiments were unthinkable to Edwardian adventurers: in a sense, the animal is a symbol of the continent which the men attempt to capture, tame and bring home, with disastrous results.

The book ends on an open yet forebodingly pessimistic note: the mission has become an obsession and far from featuring heroic and sensational twists is imbued with the mystical ambiguity which is at the heart of Africa.… (lisätietoja)