A story of grim comedy amid the apocalypse & a celebration of the sheer indestructibility of the human spirit in a nation run riot Michela Wrong's vision of Congo Zaire during the Mobutu years is incisive ironic & revelatory Mr Kurtz the colonial white master brought evil to the remote upper reaches of the Congo River A century after Conrad's Heart of Darkness' was first published Michela Wrong revisits the Congo during the turbulent era of Mobutu Sese Seko From the heart of Africa comes grotesque confusion pink-lipsticked rebel soldiers mingle with track-suited secret policemen in hotels where fin de siecle dinner parties are ploughing through vintage wines rather than leave them to the new regime Congo the African country richest in natural resources has institutionalised kleptomania Everyone is on the take Someone has even swiped one of the uranium rods from the country's only nuclear reactor Having presided over unprecedented looting of the country's wealth Mobutu like Kurtz retreated deep within the jungle to his palace of marble floors & gold taps A hundred years on & nothing has changed