Burton na África

Abstract

Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), was one of the greatest British explorer in Africa, and a also one of the most controversial. Working for the East India Company, the Royal Geographical Society and the British Foreign Office, he was always in the front line of the colonial expansion, in India and Africa, wandering in Abssinia, Tanganyka, Dahomey, Gulf of Guinea, and enven in Congo and Luanda. But differently of other explorers at his time, he had a very special approach: he produced extense writings on cultural subjects concerning the local population. Translator and poet, he left a pioneer work in criticizing his own culture, what made of him an authentic outsider at his time. Ever since, he has been read in oppsite ways, as a full time imperialist or as a sensitive traveler. Among other factors, these different views about Burton may be sign that our age is not anymore able to live auhtentic travels and collective aventures.