Africa is not the Dark Continent as so often described by writers from the gloomy northern skies of Europe. Not the Dark Continent at all. It is the Luminous Continent. Drenched in sun, pounded by heat and shimmering in its blinding glare. And within this immense continent, deserts with their seas of sand, tropics with their jungles, equators with their rain forest and coasts with more animals and fish than are imaginable.There are more people, languages and cultures here than anywhere else on our planet. Africa is quite simply the most extraordinary beautiful and luminous place on earth.

But most of us continue to see Africa as an object, a single, blighted place burning in the relentless glaring heat. For others it occupies a romantic space in our imagination of child-like primitives and wild, beautiful creatures. For still more, it's the dark side of our minds, the impenetrable place, the unknowable mind. And yes, all of this is partially true too much of the time. But there are other Africas.

Bob Geldof wanders through the Luminous Continent with his camera, putting his mental snapshots into his diary. Stunningly illustrated with his own photos and essays, Geldof in Africa paints a provocative, informative, funny, poignant and endlessly entertaining picture of this extraordinary land.