02 Jun Eighteen Trips, Two Books, and One Continent That Never Lets Go
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Sharon “Shaz” Smith isn’t a casual visitor to Africa. She’s a devotee: camera in hand, heart wide open. And now, she’s sharing it all.
Some guests check in, check out, and carry Africa home in a few phone photos and a fading tan line. And then there are guests like Shaz.
Sharon “Shaz” Smith, a world traveller and photographer from Allentown, Pennsylvania, has made the journey to Africa eighteen times. She has spent three of those trips with us here at Chundu Island and somewhere along the way, she went from guest to friend. To Jann and the rest of the team, she’s simply Shaz: warm, funny, sharp-eyed, and impossibly passionate about this place we’re all lucky enough to call home.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”16205″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1780408336063{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;}” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]
What draws someone back eighteen times? Ask Shaz and she’ll tell you it’s the elephants. It’s the light. It’s the feeling; that particular, untranslatable feeling of standing in the African bush and having the noise of the rest of the world go completely quiet. It’s a feeling that, once you’ve experienced it, you spend the rest of your life chasing.
Go to Africa — it will change your life. ‒ Shaz Smith
A career in the newspaper industry followed by the high-octane world of internet start-up technology companies allowed Shaz to retire early and pursue the life she’d always wanted: exploring the world with a camera. Southern Africa: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, and Rwanda became her terrain. And on every single trip, without fail, she had a camera in her hands.
Now, after three decades of wandering this continent, Shaz has done something remarkable. She’s written not one book, but two. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”16353″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1780394168171{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;}” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]
BOOK ONE ‒ Under African Skies: An American Woman and an African Tribesman, Two Souls Come Together and a Past Life Emerges
A cross-continental love story, drawn entirely from real events (and real WhatsApp messages!). This is Shaz at her most vulnerable, brave, and honest.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]On her eighteenth trip to South Africa, Shaz emerges from the airport terminal and finds herself looking at her game guide, Booker: tall, unhurried, wearing khaki from head to toe, a worn leather hat, and binoculars hanging loosely from his neck. The living embodiment, she’ll later write, of everything she loves about Africa.
What follows is a love story that crosses continents, cultures, and age barriers. One that is romantic and thrilling and, at times, heartbreaking. Shaz, who had long since made peace with being gloriously single, finds herself building a life around a man and a family in Zimbabwe. And then, slowly, begins to wonder: is this real?
What makes the book extraordinary is its honesty. Shaz weaves the actual text messages she and Booker exchanged throughout the narrative and it’s in those conversations that you hear two real, complicated, wonderfully human voices. Readers have compared it to Bridget Jones’s Diary in its warmth and self-awareness, while others say it reads like a window into someone’s life left ajar; you can’t look away.
It made me laugh, cry, stunned me and made me keep rooting for Shaz and Booker... you will enjoy this book.‒ Elaine Hall
Left me with hope that love can ambush you anytime, anywhere. It's a long book but an easy read.‒ LIVG
For anyone who has ever visited Africa and felt that particular pull ‒ that sense that this place has chosen you as much as you’ve chosen it ‒ this book will feel deeply familiar. And for those who haven’t been yet, it might just be the nudge you need.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”16182″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1780394214436{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;}” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]
BOOK TWO ‒ Africa: Up Close and Personal
Thirty years of photography, distilled into one stunning collection. Big cats, elephants, colourful birds, and all the in-between moments that most people never get to see.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The second book is quieter, but no less powerful. Africa: Up Close and Personal is a photography collection spanning thirty years of Shaz’s travels across southern Africa. It is, as one reviewer put it, intimate. You feel inches from the subject, aware of textures and details that distance usually swallows up.
Far beyond a glossy, generic safari book, this is a love letter to the African wild: to the small moments and the slow afternoons, to the creatures doing exactly what they always do when no one is performing for a lens. It celebrates, as one reader beautifully noted, the imperfections that make Africa so resilient.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”16178″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1780394245969{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;}” qode_css_animation=””][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]Together, the two books are a portrait of a woman who gave herself to Africa, fully and repeatedly, and let it give back.
We at Seolo Africa are proud to know Shaz, and thrilled that she has found a way to share what we all feel about this continent with the rest of the world. If you find yourself looking for your next read (or a beautiful gift for the Africa-lover in your life) both books are well worth getting your hands on.
Both titles by Sharon “Shaz” Smith are published by Blue Heron Book Works and available now.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
