At a well-attended function this evening held at the Durban Botanical Gardens, Jacana Media launched a publication by Susie Cazenove titled Licensed to Guide.

You knew you were at an event with a difference when you entered a room lined with attractive charcoal portraits of people you felt you’d just seen in the flesh. This was indeed the case. Suzie’s daughter, Jessica Hoffman, has made charcoal sketches of the guides featured in the book, many of these guides were present at the launch. The portraits have been innovatively framed in wood with an ionised metal covering, adding an interesting, rugged and earthy feel to the artworks.

With her wealth of safari experience in East and Southern Africa, Susie Cazenove records and shares her love of Africa through a collection of colourful biographies of some of Africa’s foremost professional guides.

Interspersed with often amusing, and often hair-rising anecdotes of life in the bush, she paints a vidi picture of the passion and dedication of this fiercely independent breed.

This presentation, beautifully illustrated with the author’s own photography and her daughter’s charcoal portraits documents the rise of the safari business into the sophisticated industry that it is today.

Licensed to Guide is available at leading book stores at R299 for the hardcover version and R245 for the soft-cover. Watch this space for a more detailed review. – Caroline Smart