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Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic book about the real nature of Africa
Review: A great book for curing P.C. types. The sad thing is that Africa is worse now than in the 1970's. Anyone who thinks that all cultures are equal should study and ponder this book.
Rating:
Summary: Scathing? Yup. True? Ditto.
Review: I doubt if Mr Naipaul made many friends among black Africans with this book. It's really damning. But true. And tells you more about east africa than any textbook or research paper will. I'm an Asian living in Zimbabwe and whenever my black friends ask me why Asian girls don't go out with them I give them my xerox copy of chapter 3.
Rating: 
Summary: African Travelogue
Review: I'm trying very hard to figure out how I can review this book without coming across as an ignorant, bubble-headed liberal or a rabid racist. Hmmm... I don't think it's going to happen. North of South, by the late Shiva Naipaul, is essentially a travelogue of a trip to parts of Africa in the 1970's, specifically Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Welded to the descriptions of people and scenery are sharp observations on class, racism, government and colonialism. Naipaul's eye misses nothing during his travel, and his anecdotes are both humorous and sad. It was interesting to see that this guy is the brother of V.S. Naipaul, who recently won a Nobel Prize for Literature. Anyway, this book is not going to be found on the syllabus of any black studies classes anytime soon.North of South reveals Africa in all of its glory: degenerate, corrupt and lazy. What really stands out is how Africans have taken Western ideas and applied them to their own situations, often with laughable results. Take the case of Tanzanian Socialism. Naipaul can barely contain a chuckle at the absurdity of this situation. Almost everyone he meets praises the administration, but almost no one has any true sense of what it's all about (to be fair, the same could be said for most nations). The corruption is truly astonishing. Bribery abounds everywhere, especially at border crossings, where tourists are routinely harassed and threatened with imprisonment if their papers aren't in order. A story in which Naipaul is conned when he gets a shoeshine is a good example. Not only does the guy ruin his shoes, he tries to overcharge him in the process. Naipaul constantly has to shell out the bucks to get even the most basic services, if he gets them at all. Hotels are run down traps, prostitution is epidemic, and beggars and the unemployed are everywhere. The few situations where something actually works are attributed to the presence of white expatriates, and even here there is the danger that the black government will step in at any minute and expel the whites. Probably the most bothersome aspect of this book, and one that costs Naipaul a star in my review, is the bias Naipaul shows in regards to the "Asian" population in Africa. The "Asians" are actually of Indian descent, as is Naipaul. Naipaul reveals that Africans are prejudiced against these Indians and he seems to take it personally (what a surprise! Blacks can actually be racists!). Much time is spent on this problem and it opens Naipaul up to charges of retaliatory prejudice. Naipaul is much more effective when he shows how both blacks and whites have their racist attitudes, and how both races have been brought down together through the process of colonialism. This is an obscure book that probably will never get much attention in the politically correct atmosphere of America. If you want to make a liberal's head explode, buy this book and tuck it into their stocking next Christmas. If you need a break from the multicultural crowd, this is the book for you.
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Summary: Read it and understand Africa
Review: If you wonder why Africa always seems to be an international basket case, read this book. Almost everyone Naipaul meets is a fool, incompetant, or corrupt. It may be hard to believe, especially for politically correct types, but the evidence bears him out. Africa has failed to develop in any meaningful way since colonialism. After you read this, you'll understand why.
Rating:
Summary: An honest, detailed look at Africa in the late 1970's
Review: Naipaul's trip to Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia in the late 1970's is recounted with a novelist's eye for amusing detail and a serious journalist's ability to discuss government policies and their social ramifications. It is rather difficult to find a book on Africa that is so informative, yet has no axe to grind. (Actually, the treatment of ethnic Indians in Africa is a small hatchet that Mr. Naipaul grinds occasionally.) It is a great book for those of us who like to know more about the world beyond the media glamor spots, without being told what to think about it.
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Summary: Tragic, funny account of the Way We Were ....
Review: North of South describes Shiva Naipaul's journey through Eastern Africa as it emerged from colonialism several decades ago. Optimism and energy prevailed alongside a blind faith in imported philosophies which pundits failed to translate meaningfully to the impoverished, illiterate masses around them.
Naipaul is a witty, bold writer with a gift for sharp imagery and an uncanny radar for subtle undercurrents in human interaction - the hypocrisy of the black elite, the jittery desperation of the settlers, the paranoid clannishness of the Asians. He also vividly portrays the deepening poverty and decaying infrastructure that underscored the failure of well-intentioned socialism in Tanzania.
While some racists may use it to justify their beliefs, the book is more a compassionate, humorous look at pre-industrial populations trying to forge national identities from scratch.
While today's poor countries may not have to follow the painstaking, centuries-long process that western countries did, this is still a reminder that there is no shortcut to institutional development.
For Africans, this nostalgic book shows how far we have come, but is also a challenge to craft a fresh vision for the long distance still left to travel.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: The book's humor will make you laugh a little uneasily, like the best of satire. A wonderfully detailed vision of Africa.
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Summary: Sadly neglected and misunderstood masterpiece
Review: This is a wonderfully written book; Naipaul's proses flows effortlessly across the page, the connexion between thought and word is seemless. The comparatively small body of work Naipaul produced before his tragic early death has been neglected in favour of that of his less talented, but longer lived, brother (a Nobel Prizewinner). However in this one work, Naipaul's prosody surpasses anything produced either by his brother, or by other twentieth century travel writers like Thoreau. That said, some of the other reviews here are ludicrously jaundiced and do a disservice to the book itself. This is no crude work of 'anti-pc' nonsense (an American political term that the archly European Naipaul would have shuddered at). The prose is not illiberal (in the American sense of the term) but rather aristocratic, in the best tradition of Evelyn Waugh (the writer Naipaul most resembles). Like Waugh, Naipaul's caustic observations rip into the heart of human weakness and frailty, exposing the hypocrisy and cant from all sides. The pretensions of ghastly businessmen disgust him as much as the crudity of the black 'socialists'. Those who seek to defend either Marxism or any form of business enterprise system face Naipaul's perfectly expressed derision. I personally found Naipaul's lack of human feeling at the extent of Africa's poverty a little shocking but it is a rapturous pleasure to be so shocked.
Rating:
Summary: Dazzling
Review: This is still the saddest, funniest, TRUEST book on Africa ever written. The humor is piercing but compassionate, the glimpse it provides into "emerging" Africa is dead on.
Rating:
Summary: Dazzling
Review: This is still the saddest, funniest, TRUEST book on Africa ever written. The humor is piercing but compassionate, the glimpse it provides into "emerging" Africa is dead on.
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