Multimedia
These are books, music, and movies that I used as primary sources of information and inspiration, as well as a few extras that are on my wishlist of things to get. Any pictures are my own, links are to material I do not have.
Books
I read a hell of a lot before I started writing, and quite a lot while writing. Thus previous versions of the story were chock full of facts that didn't make sense for the narrative from Antonio or Ljiljana's points of view. So I had to trim drastically (who was it that said, "Murder your little darlings"? I took her advice to heart), but I've retained the general feeling of everything I read.
I highly recommend all these texts if you're curious about Angola, South Africa, Special Forces, History, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the world in general. Some of these sources were provided by family, from their deep libraries.
The first five books were my most important sources.
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Tvedten's book is an excellent overall study of what Angola's holistic situation was and from whence that situation evolved. I think after a while I had to stop underlining because it was getting ridiculous, i.e., Read Many Times. |
| Anatomy of an Oil State offers a great political and economic accounting of the country, and probably insight into the issues of resource-rich developing nations. |
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Tali's book is an in-depth look at MPLA from its formation until the coup attempt of 1977. This is where I got the character Paganini, who was an actual Commandante, though my version is entirely fictional since his story is included in a one line footnote in Tali's book. It just caught my attention and I ran with it. |
| This is where I learned the details of "Total Onslaught", the CCB, and "Uitmergel". |
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Garcia's book is invaluable, and if there were more like it in English, they would serve as excellent balances for the various SADF/South African accounts out there because it is in the same vein. War is won by those who write its story more thoroughly, so if you go to your local Internet library, you'll marvel at why the South Africans sued for peace in Angola or were driven out various times because all you'll see is how thoroughly the great SADF thrashed the Cubans (because the apartheidists were fighting communism, see?). Fair and balanced: I read between the lines of everything I found. |
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 Okay, it's not a book. Financial Times provided continuous articles on the problems of oil states and the paradox of paucity among the general population amid record revenues from petroleum. |
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Executive Outcomes involvement in Angola |
Exploring mercenaries and private armies. |
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Andy McNabb's books Bravo Two Zero and Immediate Action show how the powers use Special Forces |
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Thanks, You Know Who (or Ya'll for plural), for this. Really great. |
Other Books
- Mayombe
Yaka
If these books translate well in English, I really recommend them. If you want the story of the Angolan struggle from someone who was in the action, this is it. If I died, went to heaven, and achieved perfection, I would be half as good as Pepetela. - WAR
Someone (you know who you are) just sent me a link to this new book, - War Dogs
This book has been on my Amazon wishlist since I heard of it.
Music
I have a hard time writing in silence, and it's good to listen to the languages, even the Cape Verdian and Brazilian tongues.
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Movies
It's always helpful to have images to help set my own stories.
- Dogs of War
I've read the book by Forsythe (and yes, Julius Caesar too; hence my title☺), which was interesting, so I thought I'd see the movie for inspiration. Besides the ridiculous image of Walken running as if he's playing hopscotch on stage, the movie was awful and not inspiring. - Blood Diamond
This was much better. I really needed to see jungle. - O Tempo Dos Leopardos
I don't know if this was the movie I saw when I was in Yugoslavia (supposedly filmed near where my family lived in Belgrade). But I've always had a film like this in mind and I've always wanted to create a story that was similar, but for Angola. So I may not have seen this in a quarter century, but it's been stuck in my mind.