Book description
Flamingo Feather, which Laurens van der Post dedicated to the
'fast vanishing Africa' of his boyhood, is a story of adventure -
adventure unfolded in the great tradition of story-telling.
It is the tale of two white hunters - one old, experienced and wise,
one young and resolute - who suspect that something evil is being
prepared on a vast scale in their country and who, with little to
guide them, set out to track down its source. In the unfolding of
their story, the immense scene of bush, forest, jungle, lake and
mountain, the untamed wildlife and vivid animal beings, and the
background mind and culture of the indigenous people in all their
archaic reality, are evoked as never before. Indeed so deeply does the
story draw on Laurens van der Post's knowledge of the country, so
directly does it touch on vital elements in African life, that it
carries the conviction of an authentic personal experience. Africa
itself lies at the heart of the story, Africa as it has been and as it
may yet become.
Laurens van der Post was born in South Africa in 1906, the
thirteenth of fifteen children in a family of Dutch and French
Huguenot origins. He grew up in the heart of Bushman country, a
thousand miles from the sea, before going on a long voyage to Japan
that was a to prove a formative experience and vital in later life. He
settled in England in the 1930s, writing and farming until the
outbreak of the war, when he joined the British army and served with
distinction in the Western Desert, Abyssinia, Burma and the Far East.
Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he was held in captivity for three
years before returning to active service as a member of Lord
Mountbatten's staff in Indonesia and, later, as military attaché to
the British minister in Java.
Since 1949 he has taken part in many official expeditions and
missions to Africa, and his journey in search of the Bushmen in 1957
formed the basis of his famous documentary film, 'The Lost World of
the Kalahari'. Other television films he has made include 'A Region of
Shadow', 'All Africa Within Us'. And a three-part series on the life
and work of Carl Gustav Jung, whom he met after the war and grew to
know as a close personal friend. The highly acclaimed film 'Merry
Christmas, Mr Lawrence', released in 1983, was based on his book
The Seed and the Sower.
Laurens van der Post was awarded the C. B.E for services in the
field, and in 1980 he was knighted. With his wife, Ingaret Giffard,
Sir Laurens divides his time in England between his home in Chelsea
and a cottage in Suffolk.
