Why read In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz?

Book cover of In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo

Book description

Known as "the Leopard," the president of Zaire for thirty-two years, Mobutu Sese Seko, showed all the cunning of his namesake -- seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Alex Finley

Author

This is one of the books that sparked my interest in the cult of personality that dictators cultivate in order to secure their own power.

It helped inspire a number of essays I later wrote about dictators and informed some of the characters in my own books. In fact, Mobutu is one of the most interesting dictators to me because he chose as his mistress his wife’s identical twin.

Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up!

From Alex's list on adventures in Africa.

Anjan Sundaram

Author

Michela and I are among the few reporters to have written personal accounts of both the DR Congo and Rwanda, two countries of prime importance to Central African politics, so I feel a kinship with her, and a sense of having learned from her work.

I read this book at a U.N. friend's house when I was a stringer in Kinshasa. I loved Michela's funny and wry observations about Congolese culture and politics, and most of all, about Mobutu's absurd and incredible reign over Congo.

Living in Kinshasa, I often felt a sense of wonder and joy, despite the difficult…

From Anjan's list on foreign correspondent memoirs of Africa.