Assassinating Shakespeare: Confessions of a Bard in the Bush

by Thomas Goltz

In 1976, Thomas Goltz, then a naïve twenty-one-year-old on the trail of his errant brother, worked his way around Africa putting on one-man Shakespeare performances.

This impulsive trip saw him wandering through the cities and villages of East, Central and Southern Africa. His first port of call, after hitchhiking through Eastern Europe and the Middle East, was war-torn Ethiopia. Close encounters followed with bandits, missionaries, guerrillas, prostitutes, savvy street kids, unrequited loves and, of course, ordinary, Shakespeare-loving Africans.

Thomas Goltz is the author of Azerbaijan Diary, Chechnya Diary and Georgia Diary, as well as numerous news, feature and scholarly articles. He divides his time between Istanbul, Turkey and Livingston, Montana, and teaches at the University of Montana, Missoula. His website is www.thomasgoltz.com.

Genres: Africa, Travel, Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2006

About the author

Thomas Goltz (October 11, 1954 – July 29, 2023) was an American author and journalist best known for his accounts of conflict in the Caucasus region during the 1990s.

Reviews

[Neill Goltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review is not unbiased as I am one of Thomas' many brothers. However, I CAN SAY, and WILL SAY, that the book is a true account of his crazy time in Africa in the mid-'70s.

The amazing thing is that it is all true.....

Thomas has an unpublished manuscript from his time there, "The Last White Elephant," which I wish he would publish.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was such fun! I'll admit that there was less talk of Shakespeare than I had imagined and more about this guy's romp through Africa, but it was still an amusing travel memoir.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you remember that night in your early 20’s when you thought to yourself “Shakespeare! My memorized Shakespeare will support me as I travel the towns and trails across Africa”?

Yeah - me neither. However, in a nutshell, that’s exactly where Thomas Goltz found himself, when he failed to catch up with his brother in Nairobi and set out to follow the sightings elsewhere. Getting to Nairobi with little money had already involved a rush through Europe and the Middle East, a pirate-dhow ride to Djibouti, Ethiopia, being mugged for his glasses, transport through bandit-infested countryside, … and the journey gets crazier from there.

This is a memoir written years after Goltz’s travels through Africa. After the adventures Goltz recounts in this book, he went on to a career as a renowned and published journalist/author specializing in the effects of the Soviet Union collapse in Azerbaijan, Chechnya, and Georgia. His African experiences surely served him well in those challenging settings. They were certainly not the traditional path!

As I read Assassinating Shakespeare, I found myself thinking of George Orwell and his predilection for writing brilliant essays and books built on his own experiences, summarizing the ‘truths’ of those moments, but always a bit questionable on the details of fact. Goltz’s African escapades and experiences are incredible - gritty, funny, daunting, scary, exhilarating… . It’s an entertaining ride for those of joining in so many years later.

[Rhonda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book. Less about Shakespeare than about a personal journey. Goltz worked his way around parts of Africa back in the 70's doing puppet duologues and monologues from Shakespeare. This is his interpretation in his later years of that time.

[Mark Vargo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Not a travel book because we did not hear much about the locals. Not a Shakespeare book. Mostly a vanity print, but at least nicely written.