Darkest England

David Mungo Booi is a descendant of the Bushmen who once lived in the distant African Karoo. Chosen by a conclave of elders, travelling on funds raised by public subscription, sponsored by the Society for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of England, Booi embarks on a mission never before attempted by a civilized man: to explore England as a site suitable for settlement and to assess if the natives are friendly and capable... He sets out to answer ancient questions about this strange island race: why do they believe there will always be an England? Did they build Jerusalem in their green and pleasant land? David Booi's epic journey takes him from prison to Parliament, from asylum to Palace. Battling each step of the way against treachery, cruelty, superstition and disease, his English notebooks tell of an exploration as heroic as any African safari and a good deal darker.

CHRISTOPHER HOPE was born in Johannesburg in 1944. He is the author of nine novels, including Kruger's Alp, which won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction, Serenity House, which was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize, and My Mother's Lovers, published by Atlantic Books in 2006 to great acclaim. He is also a poet and playwright and author of the celebrated memoir White Boy Running (1988). The Garden of Bad Dreams is his latest collection of short stories.