Frontline Confidential: Adam Hochschild on King Leopold’s Ghost

When Does a 100-year-old Scandal Become News? Writing and Publishing King Leopold’s Ghost – the definitive account of Belgian’s conquest and colonisation of the Congo from 1885 – 1908.

The book was written with the aim of bringing awareness to crimes committed by white rulers in Africa. After having been refused by 9 of the 10 US publishing houses, the book became an unexpected bestseller. By 2005, some 400,000 copies were in print in a dozen languages.

Adam Hochschild is an American author and journalist. In the mid-1970s, he was one of the co-founders of Mother Jones and has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. Hochschild’s books have been translated into twelve languages.