num_pages: 290
description: This title follows the travels of the author, Fiona Ledger, during her days in the 1980s and 1990s as a correspondent for the World Service in Africa. She describes the people she meets in hairdressers and hotel bedrooms, in shops and community halls. There are funny descriptions of lecherous old men and the pompous foreign press, of a terrible car accident where a broken arm is mistaken for a dislocated one and a charm school in the heart of conservative Zambia. There are pompous colonels; a decrepit lady in Zambia who pines for the old days; an unfaithful lover; andd a paranoid airhostess. The book is also about the limitations of news and current affairs in conveying the world we live in; it's an antitdote to the headlines that dehumanize people, by reducing Africa to acres of big eyed starving babies and invisible tyrants.
language: English
title: Mr Bigstuff and the goddess of charm: Parties, cars, love & ambition south of the Sahara
publisher: Picador