Tag: Africa

Searching for the Nile, with Ken Czech

I am a sucker for stories about the British exploration and colonization of Africa. Maybe it’s being a child of the Commonwealth, or maybe it’s because when I was 8, I nearly wound up living in Rhodesia (which is now Zimbabwe) except for a paperwork error (long story, not enough whiskey to tell it right.) Just maybe it’s because,  regardless of your political opinions of it (and it ain’t easy on a white boy’s conscience), it’s exciting and makes for great storytelling.

Among my favorite tales (and, full disclosure, this is in my file of novels I might want to write someday, so I’m a little cranky Ken beat me to it) is “Beyond the River of Shame,” the story of Samuel and Florie Baker. A middle aged hunter and railroad man took his young wife- purchased from the Turks at a slave auction no less- into the heart of Africa to follow the Nile from stem to stern in search of the river’s source.

Let’s let Ken Czech tell the story himself. Ken, what’s your deal?

I’m a retired history prof, and though I’ve had numerous history articles and books published, my new love is writing historical fiction. Beyond The River of Shame is my debut novel. My
second novel Last Dance In Kabul will be released in August.

I’m also an on-line antiquarian book dealer specializing in 19th and early 20th
century sporting and exploration books. I do my writing from wintry Minnesota.

What’s the story behind “Beyond the River of Shame?”

Beyond The River Of Shame is based on the real life adventures of 19th
century explorer Samuel White Baker and Florie, the young woman he
buys at a slave auction. After thundering the winning bid, Sam
realizes that owning a slave girl would be a huge scandal in Victorian
England so he abandons her and continues his trek to discover the
source of the Nile River. Pursued by the slave traders, Florie refuses
to stay abandoned. She joins Sam on an epic journey into the depths of
Africa where they struggle against wild beasts, killer diseases, and
the horrors of the slave trade. Though their courage and new found
love will be driven to the breaking point, the lure of the mysterious
“Dead Locust Lake” draws them to their climactic showdown with the
slave catchers.

The title is a bit of a metaphor for both the Nile River (their search
for its source keeps Florie and Sam together), and the angst Sam feels
in owning a slave girl coupled with the priggish judgment English
society would level at his reputation and family.

I’m halfway through the book now, and really enjoying it. I know why I’m fascinated by it. What is it about this story that got you going?

My specialty while teaching was Modern European History, including English exploration and imperialism. I became acquainted with the
story of Florie and Sam through the books he wrote describing his adventures. While Florie appears in his writings as his companion (usually identified only as ‘F’), there is no mention of her past or
their physical and psychological relationship.

My story combines fact with fiction as I tried to fill in the blanks about them. By the way, according to several biographies of Sam, Florie was purchased at a slave auction, something she admitted to only later in her life.

What’s your favorite scene in the book?

In Beyond The River Of Shame, my favorite scene takes place after a
Cape buffalo has charged Florie. She is escorted back to a tribal camp
where the women cleanse her in a cone of incense. Invited to a victory
feast that evening, she is quiet and reserved, while Sam dances around
the campfire. Later, after all have retired, she visits Sam’s bed for
the first time, breaking the barriers that have separated them.

Yeah, about that. If we lived closer, I’d buy you a couple of beverages and we could argue the historical merits of that particular detail, but that’s what makes historical fiction so much fun.  Besides, after Count of the Sahara, I’m hardly in a position to judge filling in the blanks in people’s sex lives. Where can people read more about you and your work?

Here are some links that readers can find out more about my books and me.

http://www.kenczech.com

The book on Amazon

My Goodreads page

http://www.allthingsthatmatterpress.com/buynow.htm

http://www.fireshippress.com/fireship_authors/ken-czech.html

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/directory/ken-czech/

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Nzinga: African Warrior Queen- Moses L Howard

I will be the first to admit that when I think of “African history” my mind immediately goes to Victorian Englishmen in pith helmets. That, of course, is both wrong and stupid, but so much of real African history is only found in oral tradition. So I was absolutely delighted to stumble across a novel called “Nzinga- African Warrior Queen,” by Moses Howard. It’s a great read about a young woman in what’s now Angola, and her fight for her people and culture against the Portuguese in the early days of European exploration. It neatly fits two of the important tenets of this blog: 1) It’s hard to be a badass woman in a corset and 2) Swords are cooler than guns.

When I read about his own personal journey to writing the story I knew I needed to learn more.

What’s the Moses Howard story?

Dr Moses Howard, author of Nzinga: African Warrior Queen

I started out on a farm in Mississippi. With a biology degree in hand, I was in the first wave of the Teacher Education for East Africa project out of Columbia University in the 1960s, where I spent ten years training medical technologists and teachers in Uganda. Back in the States, I’ve been a biology teacher, assistant high school principal, community college dean, and counselor/mentor for students at risk. I began writing children’s chapter books while in Africa, and have been writing fiction for children and adults ever since.

What’s “Nzinga” about?

“Nzinga” is really about a child who at an early age learns to decipher her environment, understanding what she needs to survive. She treats her father, the king of Ndongo, as a beacon of light that she follows to know how to be in the world. As an adult, Nzinga masters the elements of her society and the ways of her enemies—and uses her enemies’ ways against them. She uses their animals, guns, language, and especially religion. But she achieves what she does through empathy and understanding.

What is it about that time period and character that appealed to you most?

I had a whole different idea about Africa until I learned about Nzinga. I had the idea that old-time African “chiefs” thought of Europeans as gods, that they’d fight for a little bit, then capitulate and become corrupted, selling their people as slaves. But that all came from a European outlook, with no understanding that tribes were as different from each other as French or Germans in language and culture. Competing tribes went to war with each other and sold their enemies defeated in war—the same as Europeans and Mediterranean cultures had done for centuries.

Nzinga’s story is attractive because she faced and overcame such overwhelming odds. It was unheard of for a woman in her culture to do what she did, with only her father as a model for leadership. She had a quick mind and mastered languages and advanced an enormous sense of justice. I felt compelled to learn how Nzinga did what she did, which took years of research.

What’s your favorite scene in the book?

My favorite scene is the one where Nzinga is in the greatest danger—when she goes to observe slaves being loaded on the ship. She witnesses scenes of horror, and I felt immense fear for her while writing it, because she could have been taken away as a slave. I carry a strong sense of that horror, of course. When I was a teacher in Uganda, I was walking with my students, and we passed some old women who were disturbed that I couldn’t speak with them (I wasn’t rude; I didn’t know the language). My students told them I came from the people who’d been captured and taken to America. One woman walked around me, examining me, and said, “I know this is true, because there’s a tree in my village where they used to tie them up, the people who were sold as slaves.”

We went to the woman’s village, and she showed us the tree. All that remained were flakes of rust issuing from a hole in the tree, which of course had grown in the hundreds of years since then. But I turned my back to the tree, and put up my hands to see how it would be—would I fit?—to be chained to that tree. The feel of that tree, and the old women’s words, have stayed with me for more than fifty years. (Editor’s note, if you read the book you have to read the epilogue where Dr Howard relates this story. It gave me chills- and you know what an unemotional grump I can be.)

How can we learn more about Nzinga and your other books?

The best place to find what’s new with me is on Facebook (@MosesLHoward).
You can find all my books at amazon.com/author/moseshoward
We have extra essays and insights on my website at jugumpress.com/moseshoward

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about Nzinga!