Back in 2006, David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, hired me as guide for his first trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to research The Mission Song. Evenings were spent on the terrace of the Orchids Hotel in Bukavu, watching pirogues languidly traverse Lake Kivu, ice cubes clinking in respective glasses of Scotch. It was easily the most entertaining ten days of my life, despite the stonking hangovers. Cornwell proved to be a thespian manqué. The wry, extremely funny anecdotes about his career as diplomat, spy and writer, his charming conman father, his peripatetic childhood and his encounters with the likes of Yasser Arafat, Richard Burton and Rupert Murdoch were all gloriously enriched by the fact that he can do all the voices. Not approximately — it’s pitch perfect. Reading The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (Viking, £20) felt like being back on that terrace. I savoured the gravelly, quietly insistent voice of a master storyteller examining his own life.
Another highlight of the year was a new biography of Africa’s most extraordinary monarch: King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (Haus Publishing, £20).
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