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A grim, but outstanding story on the evils of the slave trade, with a focus on the African coast. Chatwin crafts a story that is as psychologically probing as Conrad's Heart of Darkness (Kurtz), and as bizarre as Marquez's Autumn of the Patriarch (a mad African king, a city of skulls and heads, women warriors with filed teeth). The common ground for all three is moral corruption. However, I think the "horror" of Chatwin's vision, as opposed to Conrad's, is there seems to be no recognition of des
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