Zimbabwe's Petina Gappah casts new light on David Livingstone's search for the source of the Nile

When she was growing up in Zimbabwe, Petina Gappah read a story about the 19th-century explorer and missionary David Livingstone and his famous (though ultimately failed) search for the source of the Nile River. The story stuck with her and years later, Gappah reimagined Livingstone in her acclaimed 2019 novel, Out of Darkness, Shining Light. Focusing on the African companions, servants and enslaved people who took Livingstone's body from present-day Zambia, where he died in 1873, to Zanzibar, the novel is a moving exploration of power, violence and resilience in pre-colonial Africa. *This episode originally aired on May 10, 2020.