Description

Book Synopsis

Award-winning writer Paul Theroux draws upon personal experience of living in Malawi in his eye-opening novel, about one man''s return to an Africa he no longer recognises, The Lower River.

Decades ago Massachusetts salesman Ellis Hock spent four years in Africa - and the continent has never left him. So when his wife walks out and his business goes belly up, Ellis turns back to the one place in which he briefly found happiness.

Yet returning to the village of Malabo shocks him. The school he built is a ruin. The people he remembers are poor, apathetic, hostile. The country labours as if under a great, invisible burden. However, Ellis is determined. This is his escape, a paradise regained.

But escape can be a snare, a trap for the unwary . . .

The Lower River is a hypnotic, compelling and brilliant return to a terrain no one has ever written better about than Paul Theroux: the tragic stage of modern Africa, AIDS-ravaged and despairing in th

The Lower River

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    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Mon 8 Jun 2026.

    A Paperback by Paul Theroux

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      View other formats and editions of The Lower River by Paul Theroux

      Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
      Publication Date: 4/4/2013 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780241957745, 978-0241957745
      ISBN10: 0241957745

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Award-winning writer Paul Theroux draws upon personal experience of living in Malawi in his eye-opening novel, about one man''s return to an Africa he no longer recognises, The Lower River.

      Decades ago Massachusetts salesman Ellis Hock spent four years in Africa - and the continent has never left him. So when his wife walks out and his business goes belly up, Ellis turns back to the one place in which he briefly found happiness.

      Yet returning to the village of Malabo shocks him. The school he built is a ruin. The people he remembers are poor, apathetic, hostile. The country labours as if under a great, invisible burden. However, Ellis is determined. This is his escape, a paradise regained.

      But escape can be a snare, a trap for the unwary . . .

      The Lower River is a hypnotic, compelling and brilliant return to a terrain no one has ever written better about than Paul Theroux: the tragic stage of modern Africa, AIDS-ravaged and despairing in th

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