theburningshore

One of the ways to learn about Africa is to read the novels of Wilbur Smith.

With over 30 novels dealing with centuries of life in southern and eastern Africa Wilbur Smith offers an easy way to gain a sense of the rich source of history of the continent without slogging through history text books.

The first of his novels “When the Lion Feeds” was written in 1964, and his most recent publication is “Assegai” published early in 2009. In between he has authored 31 other novels.

The books can be grouped in many ways. Two families dominate his novels – the ‘Courtney’ and ‘Ballantyne’ families. With them we read the story of the opening up of Africa from the south. While the life of the Courtneys focuses around South Africa.
“When the Lion Feeds” is situated chronologically around and beyond the Zulu War. With his later novels we are taken back to pre-history of the Courtney dynasty, and forward to the family dominated by Centaine Courtney (nee de Thiry).
The ‘Ballantyne’ series deal with the country of Zimbabwe, from the opening up of the land to the colonizers to post-independence life and politics.
An ‘Egyptian’ series is a foray into life in the north-east of the continent.
Wilbur Smith has also written eleven ‘stand-alone’ novels.

For more information about Wilbur Smith and his novels check out the website of Wilbur Smith (www.wilbursmithbooks.com) or wikipedia.org