Fifty years of on-the-spot commentary on the hopes and disappointments of African post-colonialism. The intelligence and passion that brought independence to colonial countries in Eastern and Southern Africa was greeted with enthusiasm by many progressive Whites. Michael Holman was one of them. A Rhodesian student activist whose support for black independence frightened his own minority white government, he was inspired by the black unionists and political leaders he interviewed, and whose message he took to Western readers, notably through the London Financial Times. But as the years passed, their early ideals became increasingly corrupted, internally and by what Holman still sees as the misguided policies of outside donors. Now brought together into a single volume, Holman's 50 years of reporting vividly conveys the hopes and disappointments of the post-colonial era. AUTHOR: Michael Holman was brought up in small-town white Rhodesia, establishing his political credentials in Salisbury (now Harare) as a University of Rhodesia student leader opposing UDI in 1965. In August 1967 he was served with a government order confining him to his hometown for a year and was adopted by Amnesty as a Prisoner of Conscience. He later became a reporter and monitored human-rights violations by the Rhodesian authorities, eventually having to leave the country illegally after narrowly escaping arrest for refusing to accept military call-up. Basing himself in Lusaka, Zambia, he wrote on African affairs for the Financial Times, before moving to London to become the paper's Africa Editor. He took early retirement in 2002, following pioneering surgery for Parkinson's disease, but continues to visit his old beat whenever possible. In addition to Postmark Africa, he has written three satirical novels set in the imaginary East African nation of Kuwisha.

Table of Contents:
1960s Letter, Bulawayo Chronicle, 10 September 1964 1970s Apartheid, Rhodesian-style, 27 August 1971 Letter to friends in London, 11 March 1974 Dr. Sithole's success story, 16 June 1974 Mr. Smith in the black books, 23 July 1974 Daniel Madzimbamuto, 25 January 1975 Ndabaningi Sithole, 31 January 1975 Last hide-out for the Tangwena, 6 July 1975 Letter from Lusaka, 8 July 1976 Ian Smith torturers exposed, 4 September 1977 1980s In search of the missing M form, 18 June 1982 The strains begin to tell, 6 January 1983 Julius Nyerere, 1986 Medicine too harsh, 15 February 1988 Kinshasa: As time goes by, c. 1988 Namibia, 16 November 1988 Don't trust those statistics, 14 December 1989 1990s Facing up to the ethnic issue, 26 July 1990 Between reform and more decline, 13 August 1990 Step ahead, leap back, 2 November 1991 A continent at stake, September 1993 Long snakes and short ladders,15 March 1994 Who, me? A racist?, 21 January 1995 Robert Mugabe's legacy, 1995 Apartheid and the power of rugby, 20 May 1995 Patensie, Eastern Cape, June 1995 Welcome to the Hotel Milimani, c. 1995 A hotel at the peak of its decline, 14 October 1995 The sultan's band, 7 October 1996 Harry Oppenheimer, grandee, 7 November 1998 2000s Ideas of luxury, 2 October 2002 From Gwelo to Soweto, 2004 Africa's Potemkin village, 20 January 2004 Lessons from Kenya, August 2005 When a crocodile eats the sun, March 2007 Oliver Tambo, 2007 Desmond Tutu, 2007 Beyond the Malachite Hills, July 2009 2010s The last resort: A Zimbabwe memoir, May 2010 Mandela: Conversations with myself, December 2010 Band Aid, September 2011 Africa is rising, 28 February 2012 Dambisa Moyo: Dead Aid, August 2012 The last train to Zona Verde, June 2013 Blue Dahlia, Black Gold, September 2013 Mandela's magic, 6 December 2013 Mandela obituary, 7 December 2013 Funeral circus, 16th December 2013 Investors in corrupt 'new Africa', 9 April 2014 A young continent, 23 December 2014 The World Bank fails to credit, 27 January 2015 David Beresford, April 2016 What's next for Zimbabwe? 6 October 2016 The struggle continues, 13 January 2017 Can a crocodile change its spots? November 2017 Robert Mugabe: creature of colonialism, September 2017 Zimbabwe's broken dreams, 13 July 2018 Robert Mugabe obituary, 6 September 2019 Counting the geckos, May 2020 Appendices Rhodesian cabinet minutes, 1967 Exemption Board hearing, 13 January 1977