Navid Kermani is an acclaimed writer already well known in the English-speaking world for his books Upheaval: The Refugee Trek through Europe and Along the Trenches: A Journey through Eastern Europe to Isfahan. His new book, In the Other Direction Now, continues his thoughtful documentation of global peripheries. Visiting southern Madagascar, the Comoros, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan, Kermani examines how global fault lines converge, from post-colonial neglect and the devastating impact of climate change to the rising and often nefarious influence of China and the consequences of the Ukraine War. Reflective, astute, and intellectually rigorous, Kermani’s empathetic yet unflinching perspective does not aim to interpret Africa for us, but to learn from it in all its variousness and multiplicity. Music emerges as a unifying thread – Christian hymns, Sufi dances, and Sudanese jazz become symbols of resilience and transformation, providing cultural links that bind communities across conflict, faith, and history and offering a counterpoint to colonial clichés and Western ignorance. These specific, grounded accounts of people and places contextualise global inequalities not as a product of some intrinsic African deficiency but as part of interconnected systems shaped by the Global North as much as by local governance and the legacy of colonialism. In the Other Direction Now is so much more than a travelogue; it is a work of human depth and understanding and has much to teach those interested in contemporary global affairs and postcolonial realities.
