A Bicycle, A Chess Set, An African River

Lucia van der Post Review For those of us who suffer from a bad case of Mal d'Afrique  that disease for which there is no known cure, Shiloh Noone's wonderfully evocative oeuvre A Bicycle, a chess set, an African, goes some way to assuaging the symptoms. It is that glorious, rare thing - an old-fashioned African adventure tale filled with beguiling stories of rivers that rise and fall, crocodiles and snakes, buffalo and giraffe, soaring eagles and wily owls but best of all it is brought to life by the stories of some of its peoples and their interaction with the natural world around them as well as the rich collection of teachers, itinerant travellers, pastors and other romantic characters for whom nowhere else but Africa is large enough to cater for their eccentric ways.  Read it and you enter richly, more humane, more poignant world and you will be reminded of why it is that Africa means so much both to its peoples and to those visitors and travellers who learn to love it too.