In 1991, five years before he died, South Africa-born writer and amateur ethnographer Sir Laurens van der Post took a long look at his life and the small details that resonated over time. Among the things he recalls in this luminous book of autobiography are a majestic French horse, the Blady of his title; the sound of the ocean as it breaks on the capes of Africa and South America; and a wondrous encounter with a meteor in the Kalahari Desert. This book, weaving natural and personal history, is full of animals, dreams, myths, the African desert, and Mediterranean sunlight. Every page brings a new pleasure.



Sir Laurens, whose life has encompassed African expeditions and years as a Japanese POW, recalls events-some joyful, some tragic-and in so doing provides the framework for an exploration into the human spirit.