Without railroads or domestic airlines, Niger's roads are its lifelines. For a year, Peter Chilson travelled this desert country by automobile, detouring occasionally into Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, in order to tell the story of West African road culture. He criss-crossed the same roads again and again with bush taxi driver Issoufou Garba in order to learn one driver's story inside and out. He hitchhiked, riding in cotton trucks, and he also travelled with other bush taxi drivers, truckers, road engineers, an ...
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Without railroads or domestic airlines, Niger's roads are its lifelines. For a year, Peter Chilson travelled this desert country by automobile, detouring occasionally into Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, in order to tell the story of West African road culture. He criss-crossed the same roads again and again with bush taxi driver Issoufou Garba in order to learn one driver's story inside and out. He hitchhiked, riding in cotton trucks, and he also travelled with other bush taxi drivers, truckers, road engineers, an anthropologist, Niger's only licensed woman commercial driver and a customs officer. The road in Africa, says Chilson, is more than a direction or a path to take. Once you've booked passage and taken your seat, the road becomes the centre of your life. Hurtling along at 80 miles an hour in a bush taxi equipped with bald tyres, no windows and sometimes no doors, travellers realize that they've surrendered everything. Soldiers collect "taxes" at checkpoints, and black-market gasoline salesmen appear mysteriously from the roadside bush. Courageous drivers - who come across in the book as rogue folk heroes - negotiate endless checkpoints; ingenious mechanics repair cars with nothing. The road is also about blood and fear, and the ecstasy of arrival. On African roads, car wrecks are as common as mile markers, and the wreckage can stand in monument for months or years: a minibus upended against a tree, as if attempting escape; a charred truck overturned in a ditch. Chilson uses the road not to reinforce Africa's worn image of decay but to reveal how people endure political and economic chaos, poverty and disease. The road has reflected the struggle for survival in Niger since the first automobile arrived there at the turn of the century, and it remains a useful metaphor for the fight for stability and prosperity across Africa.
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Add this copy of Riding the Demon: on the Road in West Africa to cart. $4.39, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by University of Georgia Press.
Add this copy of Riding the Demon: on the Road in West Africa to cart. $4.94, very good condition, Sold by Vashon Island Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Vashon, WA, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by University of Georgia Press.
Add this copy of Riding the Demon: on the Road in West Africa to cart. $7.50, very good condition, Sold by Dunaway Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Saint Louis, MO, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by University of Georgia Press.
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Add this copy of Riding the Demon: on the Road in West Africa to cart. $12.00, very good condition, Sold by funyettabooks rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bloomington, MN, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Univ of Georgia Press.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Very Good jacket. Memoir, Travel. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Signed This book is in near fine condition and appears unread. The author has signed on the title page. The dust jacket is in very good condition with a little bit of wear along the edges. The jacket is in new clear protective covering.
Add this copy of Riding the Demon: on the Road in West Africa to cart. $16.17, very good condition, Sold by Wonder Book - Member ABAA/ILAB rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Frederick, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by University of Georgia Press.
Add this copy of Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa to cart. $25.00, like new condition, Sold by Outrider Book Gallery rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lacey, WA, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by University of Georgia Press.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in fine dust jacket. Signed by author. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 195 p. Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creati. Chilson documents the road culture in Niger, West Africa. Signed on title page by Chilson. First Edition. First Print 1999.
Add this copy of Riding the Demon: on the Road in West Africa to cart. $33.77, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by Univ of Georgia Pr.
Add this copy of Riding the Demon: on the Road in West Africa to cart. $74.88, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1999 by University of Georgia Press.
