The Rift

Alex Perry's lyrical exploration of the new Africa came about after a spell in jail, visits to numerous wars and, eventually, his resignation as a news correspondent. But this is no tale of African woe. Taking the Great Rift Valley - the geological fault that will eventually tear Africa in two - as his central metaphor, Perry explores the split between a resurgent Africa and a world at odds with its rise. Africa has long been misunderstood - and abused - by outsiders. Perry travelled the continent for most of a decade, meeting with entrepreneurs and warlords, professors and cocaine smugglers, presidents and jihadis. He uncovers a place that is defiantly rising from centuries of oppression to become an economic and political titan: where cash is becoming a thing of the past, where astronomers are unlocking the origin of life and where, twenty-five years after Live Aid, Ethiopia's first yuppies are traders on an electronic food exchange.