Continental Shift: A Journey into Africa’s Changing Fortunes, Kevin Bloom and Richard Poplak

This book by two well-respected South African journalists is, in many ways, a coming-of-age retelling of an intricate and unexpected journey through a continent that is itself experiencing some growing pains. A write-up of a project that spans nine years and 10 countries (Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Central African Republic) this “biography” of an adolescent Africa has evidently battled through a number of existential crises before taking on the form that is presented to the reader in this publication almost a decade after its inception. Told with all the verve that one would expect of travel-writing, the authors invite the reader to join a confounding trip through a continent that is as much at odds with itself and its guests, as it is with the rest of the world. Yet, these identity crises – documented and preserved in this collection of stories, anecdotes and conversations that say more on one page than many academic theses – are also the book’s greatest contribution to an ever-expanding body of literature on Africa and its contested potential for growth in the near future.