Mali

The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold, by Frank T. Kryza (2006). Throughout his 11 years living in Africa, Kryza traveled much of the route that British explorer Major Alexander Gordon Laing followed to reach the fabled city of Timbuktu in 1825. Based on his research of letters and official reports, Kryza narrates the race between Laing and Hugh Clapperton to win the French Geographical Society's prize for the first expedition from any nation to return from Timbuktu.