An account of life as a soldier in Rhodesia’s war " … only the poets of the First
World War have captured so compellingly the many moods of the young soldiers”
–Prof Marcia Leveson (President
English Academy of Southern
Africa)
The soldier poet of southern Africa
matches his haunting poetry with authentic photos, paintings and sketches to
tell the story of the Rhodesian bush war. Echoes of an African War follows the
story of the teenaged army recruit who exchanged his home and his family for the
world of barrack life. It sketches the years, until 1973, when a low-intensity
war allowed a young man to explore the African bush.
The story then bursts into the late 1970s when the conflict escalated
into a vicious civil war. It covers the war’s end, in 1980, and the subsequent
readjustment to civilian life before finishing, in 1999, when, as a mature man,
he looks back and remembers events that are now history. Most important of all,
this work imparts to his children what it looked like to have been been a
soldier in Rhodesia’s war. Chas Lotter has
perfected the magic art of combining pathos and eeriness. His observations are
canny and surgically precise as he gradually unfolds his story.
About the Author As a field medic, Sergeant Lotter served for nine
years with frontline units of the Rhodesian Army. It was these years of action,
emotion and savage experience that fuelled the poet’s fire in him, and he
started writing poetry “on the backs of cigarette boxes” in an attempt to deal
with the realities of the war. Lotter’s work was first published in Peter
Badcock’s volume, Shadows of War. In 1984, he published his highly acclaimed
Rhodesian Soldier. His work has earned him membership of the English Academy of Southern
Africa.
