'Compelling, insightful, often sombrely beautiful' Sunday Telegraph Moving beyon
d travelogue, The Masque of Africa considers the effects of belief (in indigenou
s animisms, the foreign religions of Christianity and Islam, the cults of leader
s and mythical history) upon the progress of African civilization. Beginning in
Uganda, at the centre of the continent, Naipaul's journey takes in Ghana and Nig
eria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon, and ends, as the country does, in South Africa.
Focusing upon the theme of belief -- though sometimes the political or economic
al realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account -- Naip
aul examines the fragile but enduring quality of the old world of magic.
To w
itness the ubiquity of such ancient ritual, to be given some idea of its power,
was to be taken far back to the beginning of things. To reach that beginning was
the purpose of this book. 'Naipaul travels, he asks, he listens attentively and
, above all else, he notices, often seeing what others do not or cannot.
