Catch up TV

Episode 22 May 2021

British-Nigerian poet and activist Femi Nylander travels to West Africa to discover the modern-day impact on its people of atrocities that took place over a century ago.\n\nFemi traces the footsteps of a French army officer, Paul Voulet, who forged a path of unspeakable barbarity across the West African state of Niger.\n\nVoulet’s actions closely mirror the colonial horror depicted in Joseph Conrad’s celebrated novel Heart Of Darkness, which was written at the very same time that Voulet unleashed his killing spree in 1899.\n\nIn Niger, with words and images from Conrad’s time still echoing in his mind, Femi finds painful memories and communities still living with the traumatic consequences of the violence of a century ago. But amidst this terrible history, Femi also encounters beauty and a spirit of hope: young people working together and a country determined to find its way out of the horror by harnessing the power of its most precious resource - the light of the sun.

Source: BBC 2