“I know what Oliver saw, where he travelled. But in those days I was divided between wanting to know and not wanting to know. I was struggling with my anxieties. My anxieties won. In January, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated. Oliver flew from Nairobi to Leopoldville to cover the funeral, where he followed a wailing procession of mourners through the streets. I pretended he was in Lancashire. In February, Oliver trekked deep into the forests of Kenya to speak with Mau Mau rebels about the conditions in the British prison camps. I pretended he was in Suffolk. In early March, in Accra, Oliver met with Ghanaian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, who reflected on his mortality a few weeks after an assassination attempt. I pretended he was in Essex. In late March, he travelled to the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam where he wrote of the desecration of a Union Jack flag by a mob of students. In Tanzania, he also visited houses abandoned by departing British families. He... took photographs of rooms strewn with the items they had chosen to leave behind: stuffed antelope heads, stained zebra rugs, half-empty bottles of Boodles and Dewar’s.MoreLessShow More Show Less
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