Berezin, N.I.: The Zanzibar Fugitive. A Tale from African Life

Title

Zanzibarskii beglets, Povest’ iz afrikanskoi zhizni, Sankt-Peterburg 1903

The Zanzibar Fugitive. A Tale from African Life

Keywords

Summary

This short novel for children centres around Mambo, a young man from a village on the shores of lake Victoria. Having listened to the tales of a local traveller, he begins to dream of reaching the sea and visiting the island of Zanzibar. The opportunity arises when he is recruited as a porter of a German gentleman travelling to the coast. Though the journey reveals itself as difficult (the porters are rarely allowed to stop), the group finally arrives in Bagamoyo, where Mambo is taken ill. When he recovers, he realizes that the other members of his group have already left, leaving him alone. Struggling to find jobs and money to buy food, he accepts the invitation of an old Arab to work for him, only to find out that the Arab has deceived him and has sold him as a slave. Mambo is taken to Zanzibar, where he is forced to work in a plantation until he manages to catch the attention of a German passing by, who frees him and other slaves. In the end, Mambo returns to his village where he is greeted with great celebration. However, he will never tell anyone about his time as a slave.

Bio

The son of the renowned Orientalist Il’ia Berezin, professor at Kazan and Saint Petersburg universities, Nikolai Berezin was a writer, geographer and schoolteacher, who dedicated himself to popularise the life and works of many Western explorers, like Nils Nordenskiöld, James Cook, Gustav Nachtigal. He also translated the adventurous accounts of Joachin von Brenner-Felsach’s travel to Sumatra and Sven Hedin’s to Central Asia. A passionate traveller himself, he thoroughly documented some of his experiences, writing, for instance, a reportage of a journey through Karelia, complete with photos. In addition to popular literature, he also compiled several geography textbooks and manuals for schoolchildren and teachers.

Sources

Ukazatel’ nauchno-populiarnykh knig po geografii, Sankt-Peterburg 1914², p. 124;

I. Masanov, Slovar’ psevdonimov russkikh pisatelei, uchenykh i obshchestvennykh deiatelei, t. 4, Moskva 1960, p. 63.

A.F.