Paul Simon

The Elephants Will Remember Paul Simon

Here's a novel that seeks to bring back to life the Africa of old: the old, dark continent, full of its mysteries, dangers and wonders. But not just a look at the past: a blending of past and present as the novel moves seamlessly from Zimbabwe to a stately home in England and from there to South Africa. At the heart of the book, though, is Africa, which straddles no borders but spreads itself endless across savannah and jungle. And then there are the animals: the magnificent herds of matriarch-led elephants, the roar of lion and the puny adventures of humans as they strive to bend the wild to their own wills. A perfect book for armchair travellers and those who dream of Africa. Jenny Crwys-WilliamsAubrey Pennington, the central character to this great romp through the wilds of Africa, is a modern-day Robin Hood, robbing the fat-cat mining companies of their ill-gotten gain, to build schools and raise the awareness of the mass-extinction events, which threaten the beautiful Elephant of Africa. The Chinese businesses that flourish in a new post-colonial landscape in Southern Africa, are by default, to more unscrupulous than the British South African Company, founded by the inimitable Cecil John Rhodes. The only difference is who are the current beneficiaries, of that corrupt nepotism!The leaders of the Great Zimbabwe would do well to remember the past, in order to heal themselves for the future. No amount of denial, from the eradication of street names, to the dis-empowerment of white politicians was going to serve any purpose. Mugabe would ultimately fail to write-off the past, as this undeniable travesty of injustice, would seem to foretell the history that would ultimately be written of him and his legacy. All Zimbabweans would do well to recall what the 'Immigration Department of Southern Rhodesia' had told A. S. Wadia, before his epic travels; 'no restrictions would be placed and no distinctions made.' It was to this forbidding continent that he had traveled, and it is to this beacon of 'insurmountable divergences' that many a traveler should still; to Zimbabwe where 'lifelong convictions of common humanity and social equality, ' can still be 'trampled upon by racial prejudices and colour distinctions.' This is a continent of forbidding injustices and grand ideals. No mere mortal would change the past, but a handful of those who cared, could with the same ambition that had brought their forefathers to the continent of Africa; change the outlook of a dismal past into the beacon of a bright future. It is to these pioneers of hope that I write, and to their courage and conviction to soldier on with the goal of a new frontier their common objective; which I petition. Simon Pau