In this Book
- Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa
- Book
- 1999
- Published by: University of Georgia Press
- Series: Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction
summary
In Niger, where access to rail and air travel requires overcoming many obstacles, roads are the nation’s lifeline. For a year in the early 1990s, Peter Chilson traveled this desert country by automobile to experience West African road culture. He crisscrossed the same roads again and again with bush taxi driver Issoufou Garba in order to learn one driver's story inside and out. He hitchhiked, riding in cotton trucks, and traveled with other bush taxi drivers, truckers, road engineers, an anthropologist, Niger's only licensed woman commercial driver, and a customs officer.
The road in Africa, says Chilson, is more than a direction or a path to take. Once you've booked passage and taken your seat, the road becomes the center of your life. Hurtling along at eighty miles an hour in a bush taxi equipped with bald tires, no windows, and sometimes no doors, travelers realize that they've surrendered everything.
Chilson uses the road not to reinforce Africa's worn image of decay and corruption but to reveal how people endure political and economic chaos, poverty, and disease. The road has reflected the struggle for survival in Niger since the first automobile arrived there, and it remains a useful metaphor for the fight for stability and prosperity across Africa.
The road in Africa, says Chilson, is more than a direction or a path to take. Once you've booked passage and taken your seat, the road becomes the center of your life. Hurtling along at eighty miles an hour in a bush taxi equipped with bald tires, no windows, and sometimes no doors, travelers realize that they've surrendered everything.
Chilson uses the road not to reinforce Africa's worn image of decay and corruption but to reveal how people endure political and economic chaos, poverty, and disease. The road has reflected the struggle for survival in Niger since the first automobile arrived there, and it remains a useful metaphor for the fight for stability and prosperity across Africa.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Preface to the 1999 Edition
- pp. xvii-xx
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xxi-xxiv
- The Fickle God
- pp. 1-20
- The Dogs of the Road
- pp. 21-38
- Waiting for the Marabout
- pp. 60-78
- Zinder Notes
- pp. 79-98
- Driving to Madness
- pp. 99-119
- Listening to Mariko
- pp. 120-139
- A Woman at the Wheel
- pp. 140-160
- An Ugly American
- pp. 161-180
- Bibliographical Essay
- pp. 187-192
Additional Information
ISBN
9780820348346
Related ISBN(s)
9780820320366
MARC Record
OCLC
907182137
Pages
216
Launched on MUSE
2015-04-11
Language
English
Open Access
No