Jon Arensen Books

Jon Arensen is professor of cultural anthropology at Houghton College in New York and spends four months of every year in Tanzania, teaching college students about Africa. He wrote a trilogy of books about his own life and that of Richard Lyth. Their lives were intertwined as Arensen spent much of his career working in the same Sudanese region and credits Lyth with opening the doors of communication with the Murle people.

The subject of two of the three books is Richard Edward Lyth (1916 - 2005) who was an Oxford graduate, missionary, commando, Frontier Agent, linguist, District Commissioner and Anglican bishop. Lyth spent much of his life in the remote south Sudan. During World War II he served as Frontier Agent on the Boma Plateau, part of the traditional homeland of the Murle people.

Drinking The Wind: Memoirs Of An African Odyssey by Jon Arensen (2010) traces the life of the author who arrived on the African continent with his parents in 1946. Growing up in Tanganyika in the bush by Lake Victoria, he loved the outdoors and as a young boy he helped feed the family with his shooting skills. After boarding school in Kenya and university in the USA, Arensen returned to Africa as a teacher at Rift Valley Academy before moving to southern Sudan in 1976. He and his wife surveyed the languages of southern Sudan for the Education Ministry before settling among the Murle people where they learned the language and culture and translated the Bible into the Murle language.

Chasing The Rain by Jon Arensen (2011) follows the life of a man named Lado. He was born in Sudan approximately 1920 and grew up living the traditional life of the Murle people - herding the goats, planting sorghum and hunting antelope with a spear. As a teenager he was captured in a raid and taken away as a slave and later adopted into the tribe that enslaved him. Eventually he was rescued by British troops and learned Arabic under the protection of the District Commissioner. He later returned to his home at as the official translator for the military. It was here that Lado met Richard Lyth...a meeting that changed the rest of his life, the two becoming lifelong friends.

The Red Pelican: Life On Africa's Last Frontier by Jon Arensen (2013) is the life story of Dick Lyth who went to southern Sudan in 1939 at the age of 21. With the start of World War II he signed up with the Sudan Defense Force, given the rank of Major and sent to the Ethiopian/Sudan border to prevent the Italian forces reaching the Nile River. He trained 120 local warriors and waged a successful guerilla war against the Italian forces. After the war Lyth became District Commissioner in the Murle region, an area of 50000 square miles. The Murle named him 'Kemerbong', meaning Red Pelican. During the 10 years he served as District Commissioner, Lyth played many roles including judge, linguist, explorer, hunter, husband, father, anthropologist and peacemaker.

Where The Antelopes Roam by Jon Arensen (2016) is a collection of short stories connected to Jon Arensen's experiences in East Africa. They are on diverse topics and are narrated in the first person.