Author Description

Product Description For seven years, a rugged and pragmatic American privateer and his wife search for an epic lost gold mind in the most forbidding terrain on earth, the deep jungles of Liberia. While on this quest, they encounter a native mentor who attempts to teach them a new way of life, one that the locals call "old jungle." Both a philosophy and a way of perceiving, "old jungle" offers them the possibility of a unique awakening. One effect of "old jungle" is a heightened communication with African animals, especially a particular young mongoose fated to become a vital trekking companion. Before the treasure hunter's initiation is complete, tragedy strikes. Human and animal adversaries force the man and his party to flee for their lives to a tiny fortress hidden in the dense heart of the rain forest. Here in incredibly primitive conditions, they struggle against huge snakes, mile wide floods, apparently supernatural forces, merciless driver ants, and ultimately the jungle itself to accumulate enough resources to escape from Africa. In the process they gain something more precious than gold, the beginning of illumination. This is the true story of a man who enters the ancient Africa, the Africa of mystery and beauty, and learns that once you are there, a part of you is there forever. From the Author I look back on the afternoon on which Pete Rudder showed up at my office with this amazing story as one of the luckiest of my life. As a writer, I felt as I imagine Hemingway might have felt had someone arrived at his cabana and presented him with the plot to The Old Man and the Sea. Except that the amazing story of Once and Forever in Africa, a tale with all the very best elements of dramatic literature, happens to be a tale of fact. As in Hemingway's brilliant novel, the heart of this story is a man's struggle to wrest a much-desired treasure from the wilderness. The hero thus makes a lonely journey into