Book description
Summoned to Whitehall in 1949, Laurens van der Post was told that in
old British Central Africa there were two large tracts of country that
London didn't really know anything about, and could he go in there on
foot and take a look, please?
Venture to the Interior
is the account of that journey, a journey filled with adventure and
discovery, flying from London across Europe and Africa, and after days
in small aircraft, on foot across the mountains to the two lost worlds
of central Africa.
Laurens van der Post was born in Africa in 1906,
the thirteenth of fifteen children in a family of Dutch and French
Huguenot origins. Most of his adult life was spent his time divided
between Africa and England. His professions of writer and farmer were
interrupted by ten years of soldiering in the British Army, serving
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 Attache to
the British Minister in Java.
After 1949 he undertook several official missions exploring
little-known parts of Africa, and his journey in search of the Bushmen
in 1957 formed the basis of his famous documentary film and The
Lost World of the Kalahari. Other television films include
All Africa Within Us and The Story of Carl Gustav
Jung, whom he met after the war and grew to know as a personal
friend. In 1934 he wrote In a Provice, the first book by a
South African to expose the horrors of racism. Other books include
Venture to the Interior (1952), The Heart of the Hunter
(1961), and A Walk with a White Bushman (1986). The Seed
and the Sower was made into a film under the title Merry
Christmas, Mr Lawrence, and, more recently, A Story Like the
Wind and A Far-Off Place were combined and made into the
film A Far-Off Place.
Sir Laurens van der Post was awarded the CBE in 1947 and received
his knighthood in 1981. He died in 1996.
