This is Africa is a book about growing up in the modern world, while struggling to find meaning and belonging.
This is Africa is a book about growing up in the modern world, while struggling to find meaning and belonging.
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It is a book about coming to terms with the realization that you might not be cut out for all this - or, at the very least, that whoever designed it didn’t do so for your benefit. It is about the stories we tell ourselves and how these stories have been shaped. It’s about how these stories - including our ulterior motives, unconscious biases, deceptiveness, and will to power - affect our quest for meaning, happiness, and human connection.
"This is Africa follows my bizarre, funny, and enlightening adventures in South Africa, but also my experiences and observations from the gaps between my different trips. I talk about politics, culture, history, sport, and lots of other things, including what being a Western tourist in Africa means in this day and age - for better or worse."
"This is Africa follows my bizarre, funny, and enlightening adventures in South Africa, but also my experiences and observations from the gaps between my different trips. I talk about politics, culture, history, sport, and lots of other things, including what being a Western tourist in Africa means in this day and age - for better or worse."
Jack Rathmell
Jack Rathmell
About Jack
About Jack
Hello there, my name’s Jack, and This is Africa is my first book.
Where I come from, you’re not really allowed to say you want to write, draw, act, or anything creative, and so I never really gave serious thought to writing my thoughts or stories down. But after being stuck inside for over a year when the pandemic hit, I stopped caring about all that and figured I’d give it a try.
I studied political journalism and international relations at university - writing-intensive degrees - so I was up for the challenge. But the seed had been planted long before that: back in grade school, the feedback I got on every single essay ever was “this is well written, but it doesn’t really answer the question.’
What they didn’t know was that I always took this as a compliment.
This book, I hope, lives up to that glowing critique.
Background
Background
I grew up between Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Sussex, in England, and therefore spent most of my time feeling ever so slightly like I wasn’t sure I was in the right place.
As I got older, this feeling only got stronger, and it became clear that the official pipeline of high school to university to rat-race was not something I was cut out for. Unfortunately, there was no clear alternative, and not much support for people like me. My teachers, who were more worried about our standardized test scores to make sure the school qualified for state funding, didn’t have time for me, and my peers couldn’t really relate. This meant that I was eager to get out and explore the world as soon as possible, even if I needed to do so independently.
My opportunity to do this came when I was 19. I’d just finished my first year of university, had learned nothing, and was thousands of dollars in debt. Something had to change. I dropped out, and began to research how I could escape (even if just for a few months). This led me to South Africa, a bizarre place for anyone from Central Pennsylvania to end up. Even so, I loved and was fascinated by it, and came back two more times over the next few years, living there for two years in total.
This is Africa is a book about those years: my bizarre, funny, and enlightening adventures in South Africa, of course, but also my experiences and observations from the gaps between them. I talk about politics, culture, history, sport, and lots of other things, including what being a Western tourist in Africa means in this day and age - for better or worse.
This is Africa
This is Africa
A book by Jack Rathmell
"This is Africa follows my bizarre, funny, and enlightening adventures in South Africa, but also my experiences and observations from the gaps between my different trips. I talk about politics, culture, history, sport, and lots of other things, including what being a Western tourist in Africa means in this day and age - for better or worse." - Jack Rathmell
Contact me below to get yourself a copy.
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