Book description
In 1812, Francisco Manoel da Silva, escaping a life of poverty in
Brazil, sailed to the African kingdom of Dahomey, determined to make his
fortune in the slave trade. Armed with nothing but an iron will, he
became a man of substance in Ouidah and the founder of a remarkable
dynasty. His one remaining ambition is to return to Brazil in triumph,
but his friendship with the mad, mercurial king of Dahomey is fraught
with danger and threatens his dream. A masterpiece which everybody
should read...It deserves to become a classic -- Auberon Waugh No lunacy
too weird, no irony too oblique, heart too tender, mischief too black,
to dodge the sharp angle of his eye. He slips from the hilarious to the
macabre, he celebrates the comedy and plumbs the tragedy of Francisco's
life - and of Africa - in prose that grabs you with its precision
Observer Outstanding, finely written Independent It is hard to know how
posterity will regard this remarkable writer, but his terse, honed
language was built to last -- Colin Thubron Sunday Times Bruce Chatwin
reinvented British travel writing with his first book, In Patagonia, and
followed it with four other books, each unique and extraordinary. He
died in 1989.
