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Columns::February 24, 2003
Weekly Reader
Book details late prof’s visit to Africa
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$24.95
University of Georgia Press |
Retired UGA Professor of English James Kilgo finished Colors of Africa just a few months before his death from cancer in December 2002.
A few years earlier Kilgo had been asked if there was anything he regretted not having done in his lifetime. At first he answered no, but then found himself answering back, “Except to have gone to Africa.” So he went.
Colors of Africa is Kilgo’s account of his sojourn to Zambia. This autumnal memoir conveys the untamed beauty of the bush country with the attention of a seasoned naturalist and the wonder of a first-time visitor.
With startling immediacy, Kilgo recorded what the Luangwa River valley revealed to him: its voices, scents, textures and, most meaningfully, colors. Hues like sienna, ochre and umber forged a visceral link between the people, animals and landscapes Kilgo encountered and the muted palette of ancient rock paintings in caves and overhangs across southern Africa.
Kilgo barely knew the man who invited him to Africa. A further complication: the trip was a big-game safari, which conjured troubling images of privilege and excess.
Yet he went, as an observer, because Africa had enthralled him since boyhood. Kilgo’s recollections of his fellow travelers and the safari staff--their forays into the bush, visits to nearby villages and long evening talks about nature, family and faith--are all informed by a growing awareness of Africa’s complexities and contradictions.
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