GUNBEARER -Part One

About the Book

Sidi Mubarak Mumbai, a Yao tribesman, trekked many years with legendary British explorers on their dangerous marches into the Dark Continent--his first employers for such expeditions were Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, and James Augustus Grant. Mumbai began his journeys with them when he was barely eighteen years of age. He was serving in the Seyyid’s army at a minor jungle river post on the vast mainland when hired as Speke’s gunbearer for his new and future profession--and during the next six turbulent years, grew to full manhood amidst tribal wars, safari mutinies, and the enticements of generous women.

This two volume saga of Equatorial Africa’s early history is a vivid account of seeking what was not lost, as related by a candid African observer--a moving counterpoint to the often evasive personal reports constructed by travelers of the Victorian era. He openly reveals what has been kept prudishly hidden or removed from former journals about British ´gentlemen´--whose smoldering passions, petty jealousies, and quarrels endangered their own lives, and those of their hired bearers. Unfortunately, the enmity between two was also borne home to England--where it was deliberately fanned into flame by a malicious mutual friend, resulting in the sudden death of Speke--and even that was a debated mystery.

In these two companion volumes, Part One and Part Two of GUNBEARER-the journal of S.M. Mumbai, an African delivers a unique recital of his fateful encounter with Captains Speke, Burton, and Grant, unfolding their diverse relationships--and knowing "Spikka sahib" better than any, he records how the resulting tragedy truly occurred. These two volumes give a unique evocation of what it was like to safari in Africa in the mid-19th Century. The author´s "voice" allows us to saturate ourselves in the colors, textures, odors, sounds, and sensations of treks through wildest Africa, transporting the reader to a long-vanished world. The novel tries to do justice to a long forgotten historical pair of figures, one being the explorer, Speke, whose untimely death and rivalry with the more famous Burton cheated him of almost all credit for his incredible exploits. But the second character you won´t soon forget is the narrator,Sidi Mubarak Mumbai, better known as "Bombay", whose vocabulary and viewpoint are quite unique to English literature. These are two epical journeys... to suffer and travel with the Captains and their sad little companion creates a haunting effect. As a cautionary tale for our own lives, GUNBEARER presents us with a message that we may be powerless to adapt to the desperate and trivial vanities in our personal lives.It is the hardest lesson of all to learn.Jan Merlin has presented the story in the form of a masterpiece of literature.

About the Author

Jan Merlin was born and raised in New York City. At the outset of WW II, he enlisted in the US Navy to serve as torpedoman aboard destroyers in the North Atlantic and South Pacific fleets, accumulating ten battle stars before entering Japan with the first Occupation Force group. Upon returning to civilian life, he enrolled in the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater and made his Broadway debut in MISTER ROBERTS. A twice nominated Emmy award winning writer, his professional acting career includes being starred or featured in numerous plays, several hundred live and filmed televison appearances, and more than thirty motion picture films made in the United States and abroad.