The Zanzibar Chest: A Memoir of Love and War

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Aidan Hartley’s The Zanzibar Chest is a stunning piece of work. There is an amazing depth, breadth and grace of fine writing in this book. It will reside permanently in my memory. No one should dare say the word ‘Africa’ without reading it.”—Jim Harrison, author of Off to the Side As Hartley finds himself in the midst of war-torn Somalia, Serbia and Rwanda, his writing becomes darker and eventually he cannot distance himself from the horror. Callaghan & Newbury (recommended carrier) 07903 299810/07794 751445. Deliveries to the Home Counties and has a storage facility.

The real, idiot-free Africa emerges in all its ultra-vivid complexity.”—Jonathan Miles, Men’s Journal Davey was in love with Arabia. He converted to Islam and married a local woman, before being forced to cast her off. The tale is beautifully told, but barely illuminates Hartley's war stories. There is little to suggest Davey's death was his father's defining moment. Nor, despite a throwaway reference to a breakdown, does it seem plausible that Hartley's own experiences have changed him as he claims. If the dual narrative works - it just about does - it is bound together by his desire to enter the lost world of his father's emotions.

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I found this book to be absolutely riveting. Hartley has actually related two tales here, one detailing his quest to shed some light on the circumstances surrounding the death of his father's friend Peter Davey; the other tale relates Hartley's own story from his education abroad to his misadventures as a foreign/war correspondent for the Reuters news agency. Genizah expert S.D. Goitein, author in 1983 of the multi-volume A Mediterranean Society, had this to say about dower chests in that region: d) Any claim under any Statute must be received in writing by the Auctioneers within ten days of the day of the sale. Hartley’s strength as a writer is his reporter’s eye for brutal detail and his ability to fashion blunt anecdotes from the unfinished business of recent history.”—Ken Foster, The San Francisco Chronicle

This very large, elaborately carved chest, photographed on display in the Azem Palace in Damascus, would have been used by only the wealthy. The title refers to a chest his father had with diaries and journals detailing his fathers work during the last 30 some years of British colonial rule in Africa and Yemen. Behind his occasional bombast Hartley's desire to belong remains constant. Africa, his lost home, has failed him, so he looks to the fraternity of newsmen instead. He describes his years on the road as some never-to-be-repeated golden age of news. But this is ridiculous, as he later concedes: "Forgotten incidents of history become our unforgettable days." At last, wearying of journalism, he seeks in Davey's story confirmation that he is his forefathers' son. Utterly absorbing. This book tells two stories. The first is Hartley's family history, in particular the story of Peter Davey, a friend of Hartley's dad who 'goes native' in Yemen while working to maintain peace amongst the Sheikhs who live in a rapidly changing world. The second story is that of Hartley's own experiences (at times devastating) working as a foreign news correspondent for Reuters.When the colonial peoples had been conquered, we were the rulers, the civil servants, the collectors, the engineers, the planters. We added to the store of scientific knowledge and indulged our national obsession with the classification of nature. Professor James Sanders was a principal of Calcutta University, who died of fever on the ship home in 1871 and is buried in Gibraltar. Douglas Sanders discovered new butterfly species in the hills inland from Chittagong, and his lepidoptera collections can be found in the British Museum. Great-grandfather James Wise worked for the Crown Agents on Cecil Rhodes’s unrealized dream of the Cape-to-Cairo railway.