Laurens Van Der Post

En El mundo perdido del Kalahari el autor, Laurens van der Post, relata el viaje que llevó a cabo por un vastísimo desierto, en busca de algunos supervivientes puros del único, casi extinto pueblo primigenio de Africa: los bosquimanos. Un viaje no solo antropologico sino de conocimiento interior, en un libro que es la manifestacion mas honda del deseo del autor desde su mas tierna infancia: la preocupacion por el destino del pequeño bosquimano.

África es un continente pionero en muchos sentidos, pero sobre todo en uno fundamental: allí se encuentran los primeros vestigios de la presencia del hombre sobre la tierra. La obra de Laurens van der Post tambien fue pionera en su dia, precisamente porque lucho de manera incansable por preservar aquellos pueblos que aun conservaban de una forma muy viva las huellas del hombre primitivo. Sin embargo, Van der Post emerge en este libro como un pionero en un sentido mucho mas profundo. El ojo oscuro de Africa examina las tensiones raciales que existen en el continente negro desde un punto de vista mistico y espiritual, y aunque las opciones de su autor pueden ser discutibles nadie puede permanecer impasible ante este trascendental intento de descubrir el origen del prejuicio mas siniestro de nuestra epoca.

This Van Der Post reader, thematically organised to reflect the patterns and themes which have influenced his life and his writing, distils the essence of the writer, thinker, spiritual guru and man of action. This evocative and thought-provoking selection, combining short paragraphs and longer passages is chosen with love and insight from his published and some unpublished writings, (books, introductions, lectures, essays, ) and will give pleasure and inspiration to generations of readers the world over.

Laurens van der Post was a long-time friend of Jung and here presents Jung as he knew him: Jung the man, the discoverer and explorer of a new dimension in the human spirit, rather than Jung the psychologist. Calling him a universal personality, one of the greatest since the Renaissance, van der Post writes much more than simply a biographical study of Jung. Jung is a full-scale, unflinching attempt to convey the creative, pioneering greatness of the man and to show how his far-seeing vision has so greatly enlightened and enriched the spiritual poverty of modern man.

Presented together now for the first time, Laurens van der Posts collected writings will reveal as never before the fullness of his perceptive, wise and remarkably consistent vision. In all of them his inspiration has been that of an adventurous pioneer exploring not just the outward aspects of a turbulent and troubled world but, at a deeper level, the patterns and paradoxes of human life, the myths and dreams of the human mind, the values and cultures of different peoples, the elusive springs of our own people.

Last year the rain went away. It became very dry; there was no water and the sun killed the crops of my father. Leaving the kraal and misty Valley of a Thousand Hills, Kenon has come to Port Benjamin in search of work. In Johan he finds a master and a friend. For a time it seems their unorthodix friendship can break down the barrier between black and white. But storm clouds are gathering and the forces of love and politics will explode into tradedy.

This book is the remarkable story of his experiences in the prison camp, but it is also a meditation on the morality of the Bomb, a compassionate and moving contemplation of human violence.

From the beginning, Lauren Van Der Post has been aware of a dimension in life far longer and more significant than the outer eventfulness of everyday living. His perception of lifes mysterious power began with the Bushman, the first people of his native Africa, and grew in the universal imagery of dreams, the fertile legends and stories of ancient civilization, the intuitive teaching of prophets, poets and other pioneers of human awareness. In this book he has brought together two of his most deeply felt and far reaching essays, and has extended their message with great imaginative insight, exploring the potential in all men and women to acquire self-knowledge and to live life according to its fundamental precepts.

This is a story of an almost vanished Africa; a world of myth and magic in which the indigenous peoples of the continent lived for uncountable centuries before the Europeans came to shatter it.The main character is a boy who has a relationship with this Africa not unlike Kiplings Kim with the antique world of India. François Joubert, whose Huguenot ancestors settled in Africa three hundred years ago, lives as a solitary child on his fathers farm. Hunters Drift. Here, in the far interior of Africa, he experiences the wonder and mystery of an ageless, natural primitive life, his perception of it heightened by the influence of three people in particular - his Bushman nurse, the head herdsman of the local Matabele clan (his fathers chosen partners in the pioneering of Hunters Drift), and a hunter of legendary fame, now the chief ranger of a vast game reserve nearby.François meeting with an untamed Bushman, Xhabbo, whose intuitive teaching nourishes his spirit; his strange pilgrimage to the distant krall of a powerful witch-doctor; his dramatic encounter and relationship with the daughter of a retired colonial governor; all are examples of African point and European counterpoint, in a highly original theme, moving to a strangely presaged and omened climax.

This is the story of a South African boy, Peter, who grows to manhood through a hard course of physical and emotional experiences.The scene, a heroic one, is set both on sea and on land. Peter is exposed to the conflicts set up by other characters, chief amongst whom are a dedicated and fanatical whaling captain, a Zulu stoker, a famous white hunter and his daughter. He learns how men can become obsessed by greed and the will to power; and he witnesses the struggle of natural man to come to terms with the demands of contemporary life.Peters developing relationship with captain and crew; the fury and beauty of the chase; the fanaticism of the two great hunters - these are the leading motifs in Laurens van der Posts stirring narrative. His remarkable knowledge of whaling, and the force of his imagination sounding deeper then leviathan himself, carry the reader irresistibly forwards.