Explore the Wilds of Zona Verde on the Final Journey by Train

Colin Rice: Theroux is a brilliant author, although oft times I feel cheated that 10% of his works are references and snippets from other writers. I gave this travelogue only 2/5 because it is misleading- Theroux did almost the entire trip not by train, and he never even took the train to Zone Verde, instead, bottling out and succumbing to his age and despair of travelling in African cities. It culminates in a 14-page tirade of why he failed to complete his journey. Theroux finally loses his beloved wryness in the course of this journey, and you can imagine him scurrying back to his American home with his bottles of gout pills, a bitter despair of Africa and a crumpled interview scribbled noted stuffed in his suitcase. Brilliant

United Kingdom on Jul 09, 2023

Barbara Wenger: After having read his first travel account through part of Africa in "Dark Star Safari" I needed to read his last trip into his African past. I was shocked , appalled and suffered with the writer . The situation for most of its population seems hopeless . How can the life of the population improve if a rich in oil, gold and diamond country like Angola is not using its richness to do something for its people. It seems that all the riches go into the pockets of just a few. It is apalling and makes me doubt the effectiveness of all our NGO's and giant donations and makes me think twice before making any donations. myself. Thank you Paul Theroux for going through this and putting your life and sanity at risk daring to do this trip. it really opened my eyes and I am stopping some of my romantisising friends to do a back packing trip through Africa.

United Kingdom on Jul 06, 2021

Macwarrior59: There is just no stopping this intrepid traveller. This time he is heading up the South West coast of Africa by train, bus and taxi from Cape Town to Angola. He stops along the way to fulfil his quest for local knowledge as only he can do.
This isn't the best of his travel books, in my opinion, and he is beginning to show his age in so many ways. However, he and I are the same age and l know I couldn't of made that journey myself these days. Time to retire,maybe?

United Kingdom on Mar 21, 2021

Robert Alan Davidson: This is not a 'feel good' travel book. But it is a valuable exploration into present day Africa, specially the SW Africa of Namibia and Angola. Theroux becomes steadily more depressed by what the poverty he sees and the entire adventure is sadly punctuated with the deaths of 3 good people he meets. In the end, he spends much time reviewing the bleak and unremitting misery that constitutes all urban centres in Africa and specifically Luanda. The poverty, corruption, and cavalier disregard for even basic help for the poor reveals this most-expensive city in the world to be a cesspool of the worst of colonial mismanagement, unbridled capitalism, and pure greed. What saves the book is Theroux's love of Africa and what it was, could have been, and should be. And he also suggests that the truly awful scale of human misery in urban areas might be what awaits us if we don't somehow right the ship.

Canada on Dec 06, 2016

Paul Comerford: Paul Theroux has shared his travels with me for decades. I have read his words and noticed him age, as well as seen a shift in his prose. He is over seventy now and to undertake the journey mapped out in The Last Train to Zona Verde must have been daunting. Still, the drive he has made him go and further about in corners of Africa most of us would not go. The pictures he paints are candid and represent the real day-to-day life in places of poverty and hopelessness. However, he also shows how the 'advancement' towards modern, western lifestyles has robbed the native populace of Angola and Namibia of the joys of what they had. Colonists brought promises of a better life, but left them with nothing, having robbed them of traditional skills which once made survival in extreme places not only viable, but tolerable.

There is a sadness to Thoroux's observations that run in tandem to his own diminishing abilities as he travels across the pillaged, denuded lands where corruption brings the population low in the face of untold wealth.

A somber book, but well written. Paul Thoroux's work will one day shine a light on the world that was to future generations, but for now we...

United Kingdom on Sep 19, 2015

USAF Veteran: A chronicle of an extended trip in southwest Africa, this book is the latest from well-known travel writer Paul Theroux. The title refers to the seemingly final trip of the author to his beloved Africa to the "Zona Verde" - Portuguese for "green zone" meaning the bush.

I believe I have read every non-fiction book ever written by Theroux (but none of his fiction), and this book finds the author 70 years old and tiring of seeing Africa never really change other than to deteriorate. He has lived in Africa and written a number of travel books through the years. This book comments on his latest travels in 4 countries - South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Angola.

I have several favorite things about Theroux's travel books. First of all, he travels alone which allows him to interact deeply with people in the areas where he is travelling. I find nothing worse in a travel book than some author's experience with his friend and seatmate while the place they are travelling in goes whinging by without comment. If I wanted inane conversation with a mildly inebriated buddy, I'd hang out at a local bar.

Second, Theroux walks the walk; he's been there and spent time with...

United States on Nov 09, 2013

James Barton Phelps: There is an end to every trip. The traveler is safely home; and, back among the familiar creature comforts of his life, he can tell us where he has been, what he has seen and what if anything it has meant to him and what if anything he has learned from his journey. So it is with Paul Theroux in this book. He's commenced his trip up the East Coast of Africa from Cape Town. He's seen the Cape Town slums. He's travelled North the width of Namibia (half again the size of Texas), walked with the Bushmen seen, the bitter and the better in that part of Africa and, finally, in Angola (twice the size of Texas) he's had enough - the "broken, unspeakable cities" with chronic food shortages, no plumbing, no clinics, no schools, no security and no hope; and with his onward journey to Timbuktu blocked by armed gangs and with no security in Nigeria and Islamist rebels out of control in the Congo, he finally says "What am I doing here?" and he gives his soiled traveling clothes to a lonely lady in the market who tells him "these will fit my husband") and feels "beckoned home".

There was no train - ever. There was really no "Zona Verde" (the Bush) any more at the geographical point where he...

United States on Jul 25, 2013