Drum, A Venture into the New Africa by Anthony Sampson

Collins, 1956, dedicated to Jim Bailey, hardcover, illustrated, 256 pages, condition: very good.

Anthony Sampson is known for his astute analysis. This characteristic is already present in his first book Drum: a venture into the new Africa (1956) (republished in 2005, unchanged except for a new Foreword and Afterword, as Drum: the making of a magazine). It is an account of his time as editor of Drum. In the book we meet the people not only of Drum but also of South Africa. As he says in his foreword to the 2005 edition, he felt that he had left the characters to speak for themselves with their authentic dialogue and voices. While we see the people Sampson meets through his eyes, those of a young Englishman, he does, to a large extent, stand back and allow them to speak to the reader directly.