On the Back Roads: Encounters with People and Places

Dana Snyman is a publishing phenomenon in Afrikaans. The impact of his travel writing comes from the authentic voice he gives to both odd and ordinary people, from the karretjiesmense in the Karoo to drifters and road workers and ooms who sit in bars smoking Lexington.

With this book, his quaint, often hilarious, yet deeply human tales are available for the first time to an English audience. Join Dana as he talks to oom Annaries van Wyk in Karasburg about flying a Boeing (or a Going, as oom Annaries calls it); as he takes the 75-year-old rustbucket the Liemba across Lake Tanganjika; and as he searches for Idi Amin's house in Uganda. In the end, Dana travels home, in his Valiant, pondering the lessons of the road.