THE LOST KINGDOMS OF AFRICA by Jeffrey Tayler

This is the account of a journey through realms of Africa so remote, so geographically and culturally isolated, that their frontiers have rarely been breached. The Sahel region of the lower Sahara, whipped by ferocious winds and shrouded in secrets, is home to a vast Muslim population and is the southernmost outpost of Islam's dominance in Africa. Comprising the southern Saharan regions of Chad, northern Nigeria, Niger, Mali and Senegal, this area once witnessed the emergence of Africa's wealthiest and most exotic kingdoms and empires. To this day it produces some of the continent's leading writers, musicians and artists. But now, perilous and poverty-stricken, it rarely sees travellers.

Jeffrey Tayler, crossing 2500 miles across the Sahel by truck, camel, bus and boat, uncovers this lost area, revealing it to be beset by ethnic rebellion and sectarian violence, rife with Islamic fundamentalism, yet home to people of extraordinary hospitality and fortitude. From the much-mythologised Timbuktu to the cities along the Niger River, into the badlands and the semi-desert, he traverses regions that were once wealthy emirates thriving on trans-Saharan trade, now converging with and converting to Islam.

It is both a breaktaking journey of discovery and a voyage into the hinterlands of the human soul by an emerging master of the travel narrative.

Hard cover, with dust jacket, in fairly good condition. Slight foxing.  The dust jacket shows minor signs of wear to the edges.