Longing for Darkness: Kamante's Tales from Out of Africa
by: Beard, Peter (collected By)

Softcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. One of Peter Beard's most ambitious and evocative publications, (first published in 1975) reconstructing the vanished world of colonial Kenya through the recollections of Kamante Gatura, Isak Dinesen's (Karen Blixen's) longtime cook and majordomo on the Karen Coffee Farm. Recorded by Beard over a period of twelve years and translated from Swahili by Kamante's sons, the narratives combine autobiography, Kikuyu folklore, animal fables, and vivid recollections of daily life on the farm, interwoven with quotations from Dinesen's writings. The text is complemented by an extraordinary visual archive of previously unpublished photographs from the collections of Isak and Thomas Dinesen, together with Beard's own photographs documenting the rapidly disappearing landscapes and wildlife of East Africa, as well as Kamante's original drawings and watercolors. Clean copy.