Africa Is a Country

Vargas Llosa in Congo

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Vargas Llosa in Congo

By
Tom Devriendt

Not sure whether Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa’s new novel, El Sueño del Celta (The Dream of the Celt), has been published in English yet — so I might be spoiling it for some future interested readers if it hasn’t — but halfway through the story about the Irish diplomat-turned-nationalist Roger Casement, I already regretted coming across these photographs by Juan Carlos Tomasi (samples above and below) before reading the book. I couldn’t help but picture Casement (who was sent to Congo in 1883, where he met H.M. Stanley and Joseph Conrad) as a nineteenth century Vargas Llosa on a field trip. Granted, the book is much better than Sir Vidia’s.

Further Reading

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On his latest EP, Kwame Brenya turns a failed migration into musical testimony—offering a biting critique of ECOWAS, broken borders, and the everyday collapse of pan-African ideals.

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In the film ‘Tales of Oblivion,’ Dulce Fernandes excavates the buried history of slavery in Portugal, challenging a national mythology built on sea voyages, silence, and selective memory.

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Em ‘Contos do Esquecimento,’ Dulce Fernandes desenterrou histórias esquecidas da escravidão em Portugal, desafiando uma mitologia nacional construída sobre viagens marítimas, silêncio e memória seletiva.