In this narrative, Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul takes the reader on a journey among the faithful in Africa. The theme of this newly released work of non-fiction is African belief — an adventure that takes the reader into six societies: Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Gabon and South Africa.

In the words of Guy Rossatanga-Rignault, a former university dean in Gabon: “The new religions, Islam and Christianity, are just on the top. Inside us is the forest.” Reflecting on his words, it’s not surprising that the continent’s followers of Islam and Christianity still retain elements of their ancestral beliefs. The words of Pa-boh, a Ghanian, reflect the problem faced not only by Ghanians but also by the majority of Africans: “Traditional religion in Ghana is dying slowly. It started to die when the Europeans and Muslims came and saw us as pagans. Their superior technology killed us. We have witches who fly in the air. But when we saw aircraft we came to abhor what was our culture. I think the modern African is in a very difficult situation. He should look at it and modify it. He should not condemn it.”

Naipaul notes that in traditional African religions, there was no doctrine to hold on to; there was only a sense of the rightness of old ways, the sacredness of the earth. The doctrines of Islam and Christianity, world faiths, had a philosophical base and could be expounded.

Naipaul also explores the beliefs in the cults of leaders and mythical history. The former leader of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings, turned out to be more mythical and more mysterious than Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s first president. We come upon the lifetime rule of the former leader Houphouet Boigny (1905-1993) of the Ivory Coast and the myth of how he had prepared himself for a life of power as a result of his consultation with a great shaman.

Naipaul asks the question: “But how do Africans live with their African history?” He writes: “Perhaps the absence of a script and written records blurs the past; perhaps the oral story gives them only myths.”

In South Africa, the reader encounters the world of hawkers dealing in the body parts of animals meant for magical practices. Naipaul points out that the nation’s struggle against apartheid would have created bigger people, people whose magical practices might point the way ahead to something more profound. The scars of apartheid’s past remain alive in the nation’s psyche.

The Masque of Africa accurately conveys to readers the subversion of Africa by the outside world. The clash between the old ways of the continent and the new ways of foreign influences has created a magnitude of problems.