Red Moon & High Summer (Paperback)

This is the story of the young bard Mid-e-Mid. famed throughout the vast grazing lands of his Tuareg tribe for his mellifluous voice and quick-witted lyrics. A coming-of-age novel, it follows Mid-e-Mid in his bid to find his own route to manhood in true Tuareg style. Overcoming poverty to win camels of his own, he avenges the death of his father and wins the heart of his beloved, only to find that the solitary life of the wandering minstrel is his destiny. Written by Herbert Kaufmann, a German journalist who lived in Africa in the 1950s and '60s, Red Moon & High Summer is a fast-paced adventure story saturated in Tuareg lore. Though fiction, it gives a truer and more vibrant picture of these mysterious, nomadic people than many an academic volume.