Equatoria - Softcover

Tom Dreyer is an information technologist and the author of two novels in his native Afrikaans.

Adult/High School—Equatoria blends the real and imagined paths of colonists into the Belgian Congo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawn by the work of British explorer Sir Harry Johnston, Oxford-educated zoologist Willis Reed compulsively follows the path of the never before captured (by Europeans) okapi. Along for the ride is university mate Guy Nichols, an entomologist, and Obieka, their chameleonlike African guide. Dreyer offers few background details of the era, but the literary portrayal of Belgian King Leopold's conquest of the region and the horrific practices of forced treaties and labor, enslavement, and mutilation for enormous financial gain lies like a thick fog over the jungle and its inhabitants. The demarcation between native land and the European interlopers is constant. The narrative offers an almost noir plotline—readers are forced to witness the slow and terrible destructiveness of Willis's folly and obsession. As Guy obliviously captures beetles with steadfast alacrity, Willis quickly fixates on femme fatale Alice De Quincy, the wife of a local commanding general. He roams farther into the jungle, beyond the bounds of his planned path and time frame, his thoughts and actions becoming a surreal jumble of purity and seductiveness, innocence and complicity, faith and violence. By the end of the story, an okapi is dead, Alice is lost, and "hyacinths drift like corpses on the water." This intense novel will be picked up by readers of historical fiction and should be recommended to fans of Double Indemnity.—Shannon Peterson, Kitsap Regional Library, WA
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