Gabon Travel Guide - Expert information and travel advice including Libreville, national parks, wildlife, gorilla tracking in Loango National Park and mandrill tracking in Lopé National Park. Also covers traditional culture, Bwiti ceremonies, Lake Oguemoué, Abanda caves and crocodiles, rainforest pirogue trips, birdwatching and Koungou Falls.

Gabon is a small country located in Central Africa, bordered by Cameroon to the north, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and the Republic of Congo to the east and south. The country has a land area of 267,667 square kilometers, with a population of approximately 2.2 million people. The capital city, Libreville, is situated on the coast and is the largest city in the country. Gabon's economy is heavily dependent on oil production, which accounts for approximately 80% of the country's export revenue. However, the government has made efforts in recent years to diversify the economy by encouraging investment in other sectors such as transportation, telecommunications, and tourism. Additionally, Gabon is home to a significant portion of the Congo Basin rainforest and has been recognized for its efforts to conserve and protect its natural resources. Despite challenges such as poverty and political instability, Gabon remains an important player in the region and has significant potential for economic growth and development in the future.

2011 Updated Reprint. Updated Annually. Gabon Foreign Policy and Government Guide

The "Modern Sovereign," a notion indebted both to Hobbes's Leviathan and Marx's conception of capital, refers to the power that governed the African multitudes from the earliest colonial days to the post-colonial era. It is an internalized power, responsible for the multiform violence exerted on bodies and imaginations. Joseph Tonda contends that in Central Africa--and particularly in Gabon and the Congo--the body is at the heart of political, religious, sexual, economic, and ritual power. This, he argues, is confirmed by the strong link between corporeal and political matters, and by the ostentatious display of bodies in African life. The body of power asserts itself as both matter and spirit, and it incorporates the seductive force of money, commodities, sex, and knowledge. Tonda's incisive analysis reveals how this sovereign power is a social relation, historically constituted by the violence of the African cultural Imaginary and the realities of State, Market, and Church. It is to be understood, he asserts, through a generalized theory economic, political, and religious fetishism. By introducing this crucial critical voice from contemporary Africa into the English language, The Modern Sovereign makes a significant contribution to field of anthropology, political science, and African studies.

An Oprah's Book Club selection: this "electrifying" book (Washington Post) pays tribute to the wisdom and resilience of children even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances. Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord. In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa. Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent. One of the best books of the year: Wall Street Journal, People, Bloomberg News, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post Book World, and Entertainment Weekly

From the international bestselling author of THE MASK OF TIME, THE ORIGINAL SIN and THE SEVENTH MOON comes an enchanting novel of late 19th Century Africa. Intelligent, charming and handsome, Jean-Patrice has Paris at his feet. But when he embarks on a passionate affair with the beautiful wife of a superior, his brilliant career in the Civil Service goes south. Packed off to the equatorial colony of Gabon to avoid a scandal, Jean-Patrice is plunged from the City of Light into the Heart of Darkness. In the company of cannibals, ghosts, witchdoctors and a gorilla named Chloe, he is forced to revise everything he has learned and find the true meaning of courage and love. Told with humor and compassion, this is the story of a young man's coming of age in the last months of the 19th Century. Also by Marius Gabriel: THE MASK OF TIME 'Keeps you reading while your dinner burns... Great fun.' Cosmopolitan THE SEVENTH MOON 'Few thrillers have as strong a sense of atmosphere and adventure as this fascinating tale.' Chicago Tribune