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    Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo
    Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo
    Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo
    Audiobook8 hours

    Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo

    Written by Anjan Sundaram

    Narrated by Neil Shah

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In the powerful travel-writing tradition of Ryszard Kapuscinski and V. S. Naipaul, a haunting memoir of a dangerous and disorienting year of self-discovery in one of the world's unhappiest countries.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 14, 2014
    ISBN9781494571047
    Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo
    Author

    Anjan Sundaram

    Anjan Sundaram is an award-winning journalist who has reported from Africa for the New York Times and theAssociated Press. His writing on various countries in the continent has also appeared in Granta, the Observer, Foreign Policy, Politico, Fortune and the Washington Post. He graduated from Yale and received a Reuters journalism award in 2006 for his reporting on Pygmy tribes in Congo's rain forest. His first book, Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo, was published to great critical acclaim in 2014. In 2015 he won a Frontline Club Award for print journalism for his piece, 'A Place on Earth: Scenes from a War'. @anjansun

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    Reviews for Stringer

    3.5/5

    29 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Anjan Sundaram’s “Stringer” (2013) is not very interesting. Subtitled ‘A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo’, it is at least as much about Mr Sundaram’s own personal journey as it is about the Congo. Written in three parts, the first and longest deals with his arrival and stay in Kinshasa, with a local family rather than in a five star hotel. Quite interesting, the local scene, but not interesting enough for over a hundred pages. The second part is the most interesting one, when he travels upcountry, first by barge and motor canoe on a failed trip to visit a friend’s expropriated piece of land, then by UN aircraft to Bunia, to ‘visit the war’. But here again, it is too much about the author, too little about Congo, let alone about ‘the war’. In the third part, Sundaram is back in Kinshasa, where he lives through the election and the subsequent unrest, consisting of fighting in the streets between several political factions. But it is not that he is ‘reporting from anarchy’ as the book cover wants us to believe; Sundaram is holed up in a factory of an Indian contact, cut off from the outside world, until things calm down again after three days. Uncomfortable, for sure, but we are not talking about a hero, here. Altogether, quite disappointing.
    • 3/5
      I was kind of disappointed. It wasn't descriptive or emotional, so it was sort of caught between in boring-land.
    • 4/5
      Stringer provides a glimpse into contemporary life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, in particular, Kinshasa. This can seem to be a travelogue to Hell at times. Sundaram offers a needed insight into the lives of ordinary people that is lacking from most accounts of the wars in the DRC.This is an important and useful book, but I find Sundaram an unsympathetic figure. He seems incredibly naïve. Travel tip: never get into an unmarked “cab” with no license plates while carrying a few thousand US dollars in cash.
    • 4/5
      This book was an interesting look into the life of a fledgling reporter. The author writes about his experience as a reporter during a recent year in Congo, Africa. Although a Yale graduate, he has no real reporting experience and struggles to get picked up by a news agency after he gets there. Even when he begins writing for the AP, he is still considered a "stringer" and is paid only for the reports they choose to print. His life with the members of a friend's family is certainly spare, but I found it interesting. The political events of Congo often took a backseat to the writer's own experiences there. This was not off-putting for me, and in fact I found it to be sometimes more interesting. All in all the author does a good job of sharing his brief, but eventful time reporting from the Republic of Congo.I am thankful to the publisher, NetGalley, and the author for the opportunity to read and review this book. It will appeal to readers who enjoy exciting non-fiction, particularly concerning distant and unfamiliar places.
    • 3/5
      I really wanted to like this book more. But it was a very depressing book after awhile. Not because the country is the way it is, but because every time Mr. Sundaram tried to do something, it seemed to not work out. And I know that can't be helped, if that's how it happened. It just made for a repetitious and depressing story after awhile, that's all. And I say repetitious because for the longest time, nothing seemed to go right, and there was just a lot of general unhappiness about his being there. It felt like he didn't even want to be there anymore because he complained so much, so I repeatedly found myself wondering why he didn't just leave. Learning about Congo was interesting, though. I felt very badly for the people of Congo, because they live in such poor conditions, with so little hope of getting out. It truly makes one feel blessed for getting to live on a house with clean, hot water, consistently working plumbing, and electricity that one hardly has to worry about going out unless there is a bad storm. Those things we just take for granted, but to the people there, those basic luxuries would be so very wonderful! Overall, I gave this a 3/5, because it was very interesting to learn about Congo. Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own, and I am never compensated for my reviews.