The Black Heart

More about the book

The Black Heart is a celebration and a critique of present-day Zaire in the best tradition of literary travel writing, counter-pointed by the experiences in 1890 of three great writer-adventurers: Joseph Conrad, Polish novelist, went upriver on a "tin pot steamer" to the "Heart of Darkness"; Roger Casement, Irish nationalist, exposed Congo Free State atrocities in his "Congo Report"; and Dan Crawford, Scottish missionary-explorer, and Hyland's great-uncle, at nineteen walked from the west coast into Katanga, completing Livingstone's last journey. Their books, letters, journals, and especially Casement's "black diaries, gave Hyland the map for his own journey.