Getaway: 21 Years of African Travel Writing

Getaway: 21 Years of African Travel Writing

(Jacana, R195)

THIS book draws on the vast resources of two decades of travel writing in Getaway magazine to offer readers the vicarious pleasure of travelling.

Good travel writing is exciting. An item from the collection, “Following the heart’s path”, is a model of such.

It is carefully constructed, beckoning the reader to pursue a path, the destination of which is not obvious from the start. The author has empathy with the characters; they are not part of the background, like anonymous drinkers in a bar. They come to life, raising interest in what happens to them.

But mediocre writing lapses into boring statements of the “we did this; then we did that” variety, or even mere lists: “We encountered an impressive variety of general game including zebra, warthog, hippo, giraffe, blue wildebeest, grey duiker, steenbok, impala, kudu, nyala, bushbuck and waterbuck.”

There are some really fine pieces of writing, especially from Don Pinnock, and the book is attract-ively presented. But there are errors that should not have escaped attention. Examples are “The fire… was lit by an Indian tailor to warm him”, “his ou swaar”, “on Wednesday’s, Friday’s and Saturday’s”, “the Adams’s and I…” and “the Arc of the Covenant”. – John Boje