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Blood River

a Journey to Africa's Broken Heart
Apr 10, 2016
In this enthralling travelogue, British journalist Tim Butcher recounts his perilous six-week trip retracing both the 1874 expedition of explorer H.M. Stanley and the 1950 genteel trip of his mother along the Congo River. Traveling alone in the war-ravaged country that inspired Joseph Conrad to write Heart of Darkness, Butcher uses an assortment of vehicles (including a motorbike and a dugout canoe) and is aided by unlikely helpers (ranging from U.N. aid workers to a pygmy-rights advocate). Blood River is a "brilliant account of a broken land" (Kirkus Reviews) that anyone interested in the Congo Region should devour.