The Africa House: The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream

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Christina Lamb

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Pages: 400 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0140268340

Pub: Penguin

Pub date: 2000-06-01

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 31985

Editorial Review:

On Good Friday in 1914, a young British Army officer named Stewart Gore-Browne first glimpsed a lake in what was then Northern Rhodesia that the local Bemba tribe called Shiwa Ngandu ("Lake of the Royal Crocodiles"). At that moment, a love affair began which would last his lifetime, as the enraptured Gore-Browne set about creating a very British idyll in the African bush, complete with redbrick house and a terrace on which uniformed staff would serve champagne and cocktails. This is the complicated story of a man, his colonial vision, and the burden it became, set against the country in which he battles to realise it.
Christina Lamb has assembled the story from the mass of diaries and correspondence that lay within the now crumbling and neglected house. It is an extraordinary tale that leaps off the page with the grace of a springbok. Gore-Browne initially appears an extinct species, all Harrovian vowels, and prone to pepper with lead shot anything that moves. He is, however, infused with a liberal, humane streak that leads him in later life to support Kenneth Kaunda and the UNIP in their fight for power. Indeed, Kaunda said of him, "... he [Gore-Browne] was born an English gentleman, and died a Zambian gentleman".

Gore-Browne's personal life progressed from an unrequited love to a dramatic marriage, while still indulging in a formidably passionate correspondence with a favourite aunt. There are times when you wish for a timely swipe of the novelist's pen, but it is the nature of this beast that questions remain unanswered; what holds this engrossing chronicle in place is the Africa House itself, and the lives that unfold in and around it, perched incongruously as it is in a country that has outgrown it. --David Vincent

Reader Reviews:

In my all time top ten (6/6 people found this helpful)

I loved this book. If this story were written as a piece of fiction, you'd roll your eyes and wonder at the author's imagination. The fact that this story is true is simply incredible. What a life! What a character! It's made me long to go visit the Africa House. Brilliant, brilliant.

Captivating the beauty and incongruity of Africa House (11/11 people found this helpful)

I read a copy of Africa House whilst on a week's visit to the super country of Zambia. I found the storyline both rivetting and mysterious, it was very well researched and the atmosphere of the place comes across very effectively to the reader. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when afterwards I saw the slightly tarnished ink-pot with which Gore-Browne wrote all the letters (on display at the National Museum in Lusaka), along with his walking stick and other items. Only wish I had more time to go and visit the house, I heard it was beginning to fall into ruin.

Amazing historical story (6/7 people found this helpful)

I read this book while on holiday and had spotted it while searching through for books about Africa. I started off by finding Stuart Gore Brown a very difficult man to comprehend and the violence he used on the black people who worked for him I found hard to handle. However I read on and really found his journey amazing. His place in history has been made through this book and his is a life that has slipped by and until now been unknown (well to me anyway). His part in campaigning for equality and the effort he put into educating some of the most famous polictical leaders was what I found so interesting. The life he lead in Africa, his love for Ethel and his never ending passion for what he had built and the lives around him made this a really brilliant read. I also learnt something from it!

Well-written,compelling - an unusual story of an unusual man (9/9 people found this helpful)

I really enjoyed this book. I had not heard of Gore Brown, nor his dream mansion in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. A man of contradictions, who wanted Africa for the Africans and the white man to help them show the way, his eccentricities and determination is eloquently portrayed by Lamb. Losing his first love to another, he oddly marries her daughter, who bears him two girls.
A life of politics, farming, and entertaining foreign and domestic dignitaries, he made an impact on Copperbelt politics, and was disappointed he was too old to assist in Kenneth Kaunda's new goverment. He is the only white man to have received a full Bemba funeral, attended by Kenneth Kaunda, ex-president of Zambia. He was truly an unique and incredible man. Christina Lamb presents a believable portrayal of an English eccentric, who realised his dream,and built an English mansion in the African bush, for his favourite Aunt. A great read, and the political and cultural context is blended well with the life story of Gore-Brown.

There must be a film on the way! (11/11 people found this helpful)

I thought this might be a heavy-going and 'worthy' read, but far from it. I zipped through it in no time and couldn't stop turning the pages! What an amazing, complex man and an almost unbelievable life! It's interesting to note that Mark at the Africa House has now finished renovating it - it will definitely be on my list of 'must see' things before I pop my clogs. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in travel, or African history or indeed anyone who just wants to read a fantastic, inspiring tale about one of the lesser known, but hugely influential, characters of recent times.

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