Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa's Deadliest War

by Ben Rawlence

Overview

While poring over dust-caked pamphlets in the library, Ben Rawlence stumbles upon the photo of a lost city of colonial Congo—a glistening, modern metropolis built by huge tin mines and European capitalists. Today, that city, Manono, sits beyond the infamous “Triangle of Death,” in an area rarely reached by outsiders since war turned the country’s rivers to blood.

In this compelling debut, Rawlence sets out to gather the news from this ghost town in one of the most dangerous places in the world. Ignoring the advice of locals, reporters, and mercenaries, he travels by foot, motorbike, and canoe, taking his time and meeting the people who are rebuilding their homes with hope, faith, and nervous instinct. We meet Benjamin, the kindly father of the most terrifying Mai Mai warlord; Leya, who happily gives up a good job in Zambia to return to her razed town; Colonel Ibrahim, a guerrilla turned army officer; the Lebanese cousins Mohammed and Mohammed, who oversee the remains of Manono’s great mine; the priest Jean-Baptiste, who explains the conjoined prices of beer and normality; and the talk-show host Mama Christine, who dispenses counsel and courage in equal measure.

From the “blood cheese” of Goma to the decaying city of Manono, Rawlence shares the real story of Congo during and after the war, and finds not just a lost city but the seeds of a peaceful future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781851689651
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	03/19/2013
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.24(w) x 7.58(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Ben Rawlence is a senior researcher on Africa for Human Rights Watch. He has written for The Huffington Post , Guardian , Prospect magazine, London Review of Books , and others and contributed to BBC radio. Fluent in Swahili, he received his master’s in international relations from the University of Chicago. He travels regularly to London, New York, and Africa as part of his investigative work for Human Rights Watch.

Table of Contents

Prologue
1. The Lost City
2. “What You Wanna Go There For?”
3. Under the Volcano
4. Meeting the Colonel
5. Guerrillas in the Mist
6. Blood Cheese
7. “The Waves on the Lake Are Not Negligible, My Dear”
8. Outsiders
9. A Fishless Lake
10. The Return, Part I
11. Trouble in the Mulenge Hills
12. The End Is Nigh
13. In Search of Goats and Gold
14. A Cruise on Tanganyika
15. The Intelligence Director’s Bath
16. The Forest People
17. “Inhuman”
18. The Guns of Moba
19. My Name is Zongwe
20. The Return, Part II
21. The Lake of Snails
22. Eating the Neighbours
23. Of Pigs, Rabbits, and Popes
24. La route principale
25. Beer and Normality
26. The Bend in the River
27. The Price of Tin
28. Electric Dreams
29. The News from Manono
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Further Reading, Listening, and Watching
Index

Editorial Reviews

"A distressing but important read." - Kirkus Reviews

“Intrepid and undaunted by hazards that would send most journalists scurrying back to the bar of their hotel, Ben Rawlence gets far deeper into the life of this war-torn country than most.”
—Adam Hochschild , author of King Leopold’s Ghost

“Lucid, laconic, and elegantly written.”
—Michela Wrong , author of In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz

“Gripping... Rawlence gets under Congo’s skin... He makes a self-effacing guide with a necessary sense of the ridiculous, an eye for the telling detail and a talent for evocative description. But it is his closeness to the Congolese that really stands out.”
— The Times (London)

“ Radio Congo is an unexpected broadcast of hope... This is a much-needed to a misunderstood country—and a welcome glimpse of sunshine.”
— Prospect magazine

“Intimate and entertaining portraits.”
— The Economist

“Rawlence writes in a lyrical style, whether he’s introducing us to some of the eccentric characters he meets along the way or... the scenes he encounters, both harsh and beautiful.”
— We Love This Book

“A compelling debut.”
— The Bookseller

From the Publisher

A firsthand report from deep inside Congo. Covering much of the center of Africa, Congo is "[b]lessed with deposits of ninety percent of the world's minerals"--gold, tin, copper, diamonds and more--worth trillions of dollars. These considerable resources have led to multiple conflicts between Congo and its neighboring countries, as well as strife within. With Congo at peace for less than a decade now, Rawlence, a senior researcher on Africa for Human Rights Watch, was finally able to explore the country, and he describes Congo as nothing less than "the most fascinating, beguiling, and…misunderstood country on the continent." After looking back on his own introduction to Congo, the author gives readers a cursory introduction to the complex history of the nation before launching into his exploration. In a narrative that is part travelogue and part reportage, Rawlence crisscrosses the country, describing the Congolese he meets with vivid and often lyrical prose. He describes a former militia captain, who may or may not have committed unspeakable atrocities during wartime, now "sitting in the sunshine with a child on his knee," as he "rubs the head of his son while his wife laughs and smiles and winnows the rice with her hard and wrinkled hands." However, such beauty is overshadowed by the problems that still plague the country: former refugees returning to find that "Congo does not have enough schools even for those who are already here," food shortages and runaway inflation. Rawlence also points out that "[t]he incidence of rape in eastern Congo is the highest in the world." Some readers may find it difficult to see the titular "signals of hope" amid so much sadness. A distressing but important read.

Kirkus Reviews