Postcards from Congo

Postcards from Congo is a graphic history, a vibrant portrait of one of Africa’s largest countries. Edmund Trueman’s narrative pages are interspersed with a series of highly colored illustrations, some imaginative, some historically based, each identified on the final pages. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is not on the radar of most Americans, but both the country and the book warrant attention and understanding. It is a vast country, and the drainage basin of the Congo River is the size of India.

The book focuses mainly on the past 200 years, but early pages tell how Bantu immigration stretched over centuries evolving from hostility to a measure of assimilation. Peaceful times were interrupted by gruesome details of the barbarism during the Belgian colonial period, and the brutality of King Leopold 11’s reign.

Political and social changes have come about since full independence was achieved in 1960. Substantial mineral discoveries, most recently uranium, have opened the door to wealth, even as the legacy of personal and racial inequality have not been fully curbed. Congo’s burgeoning music industry, depicted with glorious illustrations, already draws global attention, enabling Trueman to highlight a positive, cultural view of a country with a complex past.