Our co-host’s eye was drawn to a weathered tome in an antiquarian bookshop: The White Monk of Timbuctoo, by William Seabrook. It promised (and delivered) the life story of a French defrocked priest living in great luxury in a mud palace in 1930s Timbuktu, all in electric prose and fitting into a long-standing interest in high-agency colonial Frenchmen doing interesting things in liminal spaces. See also: Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Henry de Montfried.

This white monk, Auguste Dupuis aka Pere Yakouba, had been in the first group of missionaries to make it alive to Timbuktu. They set up a clinic and chapel, and he ended up leading the mission. He was slightly scandalous, a heavy drinker and extremely French womaniser, so was sent on a new mission to Dahomey which he completely nailed. Recalled to become a bishop, he decided that he  ...