Travels in the Heart of Africa

The Weekenders

A wonderful collection of short stories and travel writing from some of Britain's best writers

What would happen if you took some of Britain's best writing talent, put them on a plane and flew them to one of the most extraordinary and inaccessible places on the planet? What would happen if you took Irvine Welsh from the streets of Edinburgh and showed him a remote, dangerous village in Africa? Or if you flew Alex Garland into one of the world's most hazardous war zones? And how would Tony Hawks react if you dragged him away from his tennis and asked him to write a song with a Sudanese tribesman? With Victoria Glendinning, Andrew O'Hagan, Giles Foden and WF Deedes, these writers have experienced for themselves one of the most beautiful and yet troubled lands in the world - Sudan. This remarkable collection of short stories and evocative travel writing is their response - as diverse and unpredictable as the country itself.

Giles Foden

Another delightful tale sieved from the flotsam of African military history from a writer who is fast creating a niche of his own

Foden has brought to life one of the strangest episodes of the first world war'... a real romp through the desert of darkness and extremely funny

Giles Foden writes with wit ... give it a read

The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika

At the start of World War One, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa. The British had no naval craft at all upon 'Tanganjikasee', as the Germans called it. This mattered: it was the longest lake in the world and of great strategic advantage. In June 1915, a force of 28 men was despatched from Britain on a vast journey. Their orders were to take control of the lake. To reach it, they had to haul two motorboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo. 
 
 
 
The 28 were a strange bunch -- one was addicted to Worcester sauce, another was a former racing driver -- but the strangest of all of them was their skirt-wearing, tattoo-covered commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Whatever it took, even if it meant becoming the god of a local tribe, he was determined to cover himself in glory. But the Germans had a surprise in store for Spicer-Simson, in the shape of their secret 'supership' the Graf von Gotzen . . . 
 
 
 
Unearthing new German and African records, the prize-winning author of The Last King of Scotland retells this most unlikely of true-life tales with his customary narrative energy and style. 
 
 
Fitzcarraldo meets Heart of Darkness, this is rich, vivid and flashmanesque in its appeal - military history at its most absorbing and entertaining

Giles Foden

Praise for Mimi and Toutou Go Forth

Another delightful tale sieved from the flotsam of African military history from a writer who is fast creating a niche of his own

Foden has brought to life one of the strangest episodes of the first world war'... a real romp through the desert of darkness and extremely funny

Giles Foden writes with wit ... give it a read

Another delightful tale sieved from the flotsam of African military history from a writer who is fast creating a niche of his own

Foden has brought to life one of the strangest episodes of the first world war'... a real romp through the desert of darkness and extremely funny

Giles Foden writes with wit ... give it a read

Another delightful tale sieved from the flotsam of African military history from a writer who is fast creating a niche of his own

Foden has brought to life one of the strangest episodes of the first world war'... a real romp through the desert of darkness and extremely funny

Giles Foden writes with wit ... give it a read

Books by Giles Foden

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