Dust Diaries - Hardcover

A few years ago, Owen Sheers stumbled upon a dusty book in his father's study by the extraordinary Arthur Cripps, part-time lyric poet and full-time unorthodox missionary, who served in Rhodesia for 50 years from 1902. Sheer's discovery prompts a quest into colonial Africa at the turn of the century, by way of war, a doomed love affair and friction with authorities. His personal journey into the contemporary heart of darkness that is Mugabe's Zimbabwe finds more than Cripps' legacy - Sheers finds a land characterized by terror and fear and blighted by the land reform policies that Cripps himself anticipated.

Born in Fiji in 1974, Owen Sheers was brought up in Abergavenny, South Wales. Named by the Independent on Sunday as one of Britain's Top Thirty Young Writers, he is the author of the acclaimed poetry collection The Blue Book. The Dust Diaries is his first book of prose.