The Ghosts of Africa – William Stevenson

Description

“A luxuriously intense, historically resonant, war-wise and densely ironic soldier’s tale” – Kirkus Reviews.

From the author of the international bestseller A Man Called Intrepid comes a novel whose majestic sweep encompasses war, loyalty, death and love, and whose imposing background is carved in the rock of history.

German East Africa at the outbreak of the First World War: the Governor surrenders to the British, but Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Lettow fights on, waging a private war against massed Allied forces. He cannot accept a craven neutrality while his country is locked in devastating combat in Europe. With only a few hundred civilians and professional soldiers, and with essential aid of black rebels, von Lettow sets out to create and lead the first modern guerilla army. He hopes to shatter not only the enemy but also the brutally enforced concept of white supremacy.

The violence of this far-flung battleground is the setting for a magnificent story of the endurance of love. Torn between her passion for the charismatic Prussian and her opposition to the madness of war, powerful, sensual Kate Truman, daughter of an American general and sister to a major about to be executed by the Germans, becomes von Lettow’s unofficial adjutant.

Before the struggle reaches its bizarre and bitter conclusion, von Lettow’s loyalty to Germany will have cost him his youth and his dreams – and will have transformed him into an African legend.

The Ghosts of Africa recreates with stunning force one of history’s great dramatic moments, until now unexplored.