The black hearth: a voyage into central Africa
by Paul Hyland
- New York: paragon House, 1988
- [ca. 287 p.]: ill. ; 21 cm.
Includes bibliography and index
The Black Heart is celebration and a critique of present day Zaire in the best tradition of literary travel writing, counter-pointed by the experiences in 1890 of three great writer/ adventures. Joseph Conrad, Polish novelist, went upriver on a "tin-pot steamer" to the heart of darkness; Roger Casement, Irish nationalists, exposed Congo Free State atrocities in his Congo Report; and Dan Crawford, Scottish missionary-explorer and Hyland's great uncle, at nineteen walked from the west coast into katanga, completing livingstone's last journey. Their books, letter, journals, and especially Casements Black diares gave Hyland the map for his own journey.