While reading this book I thought about the English writer Evelyn Waugh, with his stories about the African continent. Richard Osinga, the writer of this book, spent some years in the diplomatic service and worked in Algiers and Dakar.

In this debut novel Osinga writes about the life of Bor, a young diplomat, in an African country. Bor lives in an isolated position, far away, in a mental way, from the local population. Still he wants to know more about the country and people. A flooding has been reported in the Dutch media, but the embassy staff does not know anything about it. How is this possible? Bor start an investigation. He discovers that the world of the media and manipulation and politics is very complex and hard to understand. And he has to answer the question : “What am I doing here?”

Richard Osinga – Bor in Afrika – Amsterdam 2003 – 239 pages