THE YEAR OF THE LION is the formative year in the life of Jervis, a young white settler, when an especially bold and cunning beast declared war first on the settlers' cattle and then on his pursuers, and killed four men before Jervis brough him down and so won, as it were, his passport to manhood.

It describes life on the frontier of two worlds. There is the vanishing world of tribal Africa, of the lion and the warrior, and the new world, creeping in, of roads and cigarettes and politics.

Mr Hanley gives us the truth about this part of Africa and these people, black and white, caught up in a tremendous destiny they cannot control.