Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher

From the Publisher

A compulsively readable account of a journey to the Congo — a country virtually inaccessible to the outside world — vividly told by a daring and adventurous journalist.

Ever since Stanley first charted its mighty river in the 1870s, the Congo has epitomized the dark and turbulent history of a failed continent. However, its troubles only served to increase the interest of Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher, who was sent to cover Africa in 2000. Before long he became obsessed with the idea of recreating Stanley’s original expedition — but travelling alone.

Despite warnings Butcher spent years poring over colonial-era maps and wooing rebel leaders before making his will and venturing to the Congo’s eastern border. He passed through once thriving cities of this country and saw the marks left behind by years of abuse and misrule. Almost, 2,500 harrowing miles later, he reached the Atlantic Ocean, a thinner and a wiser man.

Butcher’s journey was a remarkable feat. But the story of the Congo, vividly told in Blood River, is more remarkable still.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Washington Post - Kira Salak

Butcher constantly juxtaposes present and past realities, giving his narrative the surreal feel of time travel. His journey is complemented by quotations from Stanley's travel narrative, Through the Dark Continent, published in 1878, and by numerous interviews he conducted with local people, including Congolese mayors and Greek expats. Butcher's breadth of knowledge is both impressive and eclectic.

Publishers Weekly

"For me terror manifests itself through clear physical symptoms, an ache that grows behind my knees and a choking dryness in my throat," writes British journalist Butcher in the preface of this devastating yet strangely exhilarating account of his six-week ordeal retracing the steps of 19th-century explorer H.M. Stanley's Victorian-era travels through the present-day hell that is the Republic of Congo. Setting out into the war-torn, disease-infested backcountry of Congo in 2000 against the wishes of just about everyone in his life-family, friends, editors and a wild assortment of government officials (the corrupt and the more corrupt)-Butcher quickly finds more horror than he'd previously experienced in his 10 years as a war correspondent ("With my own eyes I had peered into a hidden African world where human bones too numerous to bury were left lying on the ground"). His tale is chock-a-block with gruesome details about the brutal Belgian rule of the late 19th century as well as the casual disregard for life on the contemporary scene. Part travelogue, part straight-forward reportage, Butcher's story is a full-throated lament for large-scale human potential wasted with no reasonable end in sight. (Oct.)

Veronica Arellano - Library Journal

Part adventure travelog and part historical narrative, this book chronicles Daily Telegraph correspondent Butcher's intrepid journey across the heart of the Congo. As the Telegraph's African bureau chief, Butcher sought to appease his growing obsession with this troubled African nation by retracing H.M. Stanley's famous 1874 mapping expedition of the Congo River. Thus ensued an amazing 44-day adventure through some of the Congo's most dangerous regions, many untraveled in decades. Thankfully, the text offers more than just a solitary explorer's romp and reflection through Africa. Although at times caught up in his personal struggles with loneliness, disease, and fatigue, Butcher does manage to accomplish a greater good. He shares the stories of ordinary people, aid workers, and missionaries all desperately trying to subsist in a country lacking the fundamentals of law and order. It is in these moments that his book shines. What Butcher's tale lacks in political analysis is redeemed by the honesty of his writing and his genuine attempt to bring international interest to the Congo and the struggles of its citizens. Recommended for large public libraries and academic libraries with African studies, geography, or travel collections.

Kirkus Reviews

A somber, eye-opening journey into the definitive heart of darkness. Joseph Conrad is the tutelary spirit of this work by Daily Telegraph correspondent Butcher, who for years "had stared at maps dominated by the Congo River, a silver-bladed sickle, its handle anchored on the coasts, its tip buried deep in the equatorial forest" and, emphatically without the approval of his newspaper employer, decided to travel the 3,000-odd-mile length of the river. Conrad may be the spirit, but the book's more literal guide is the 19th-century adventurer Henry Stanley, as miscreant an imperialist as ever there was. Half a century ago, Butcher's mother made the voyage down the Congo, but that was before the country had disintegrated into postcolonial civil war and what Butcher, quoting her, refers to as "a great deal of ‘beastliness.' " An ardent student of history and culture, Butcher could find no single expert, before undertaking his voyage, who could make sense of the entire country. After his trip, so eloquently described here, he may be the only Western journalist with such a handle on that vast region. His book is of tremendous use to geographers, development specialists and humanitarian aid workers, as well as armchair travelers. One thing he turns up almost immediately is the impossibility of domestic harmony in a land where local government is impossible. As one of his interlocutors, a town mayor, says, "I can pay no civil servants because I have no money and there is no bank or post office where money could be received, and we have no civil servants because all the schools and hospitals and everything do not work." Nonetheless, Butcher finds a few rays of hope even in a place where, by hisreckoning, about 1,200 lives a day are lost in a civil war that the international community seems to consider "a lost cause without hope of ever being put right."A brilliant account of a broken land, one that certainly deserves the attention this excellent book brings. Agent: Camilla Hornby/Curtis Brown

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Reading Group Guide

Table of Contents

Reading Group Guide

1. What do you think of Tim Butcher’s decision to go on this journey in the Congo? Was it brave or foolhardy? Intrepid or insane? Would you ever consider such a journey yourself? If so, why?

2. Do you think Tim is correct, that you can only understand a country by visiting it in person? If so, is it possible to gain a comprehensive understanding of a country by just travelling through, or do you think it’s necessary to live somewhere to get to know it properly?

3. Do you think it gives a fair picture of life in the Congo? Would a Congolese voice tell things differently?

4. What did you know about the Congo before reading Blood River? Did reading it change your perception of the country? If so, how?

5. Which episode in the book sticks most clearly in your head?

6. In what ways does Tim Butcher explore the relationship between Europe and Africa in Blood River?

7. How does his final route compare to that of H.M Stanley’s expedition?

8. Do you think that Tim Butcher’s portrayal of the Congo and its future is for the most part positive, or pessimistic? What are your own feelings and what, if anything, do you think should be done?