In Desert and Wilderness

The story takes place in the late 19th century Egypt, during the Mahdist War. A 14-year-old Polish boy, Stanisław (Staś) Tarkowski, and 8-year-old English girl, Nel Rawlison, live with their fathers and grow up in the town of Port Said[1]. Their fathers are engineers who supervise the maintenance of the Suez Canal. One day, the Mahdist War begins in Sudan, led by a Muslim preacher, the Mahdi. Staś and Nel are captured as hostages by a group of Arabs who hope that they can exchange the children for Fatima, Mahdi's distant relative, who had been arrested by the British.

Nel and Staś are forced to travel through the Sahara Desert to Khartoum, where they are to be presented to Mahdi. The journey is difficult and exhausting, especially for delicate and vulnerable Nel. Staś, protects his friend from the abductors' cruelty, even though that means that he is beaten and punished. His plans to escape fail and the children gradually lose their hope.

When the group arrive in Khartoum, the Arabs are disappointed by the fact that Mahdi, busy with leading the revolt, ignored their mission and turned down their offers. They take out their anger and frustration on the children.

Staś is summoned to meet with the Mahdi and turns down the rebel leader's offer to convert to Islam. For that he is strongly reprimanded by another European captive, a Greek who did agree to convert in order to save his family and himself. The Greek tells Staś that such a forced conversion does not count since "God sees what is inside your heart" and that, by his intransigence, Staś may have doomed Nel to terrible death.

Staś and Nel, exhausted by heat, thirst, hunger and poor treatment, live for some time in the city ruined by war, poverty and diseases. After a while the children and Arabs make another journey further south, to Fashoda.

One day the group encounters a lion who attacks them. The Arabs (who do not know how to fire a shotgun) hand the weapon to Staś and beg him to shoot the beast. Staś kills the lion, and then shoots down the Arabs as well. This is dictated by the despair and fury: the boy knows that the men were not going to set the children free.

Free of the Arabs, the children are marooned in the depth of Africa. They set out on an arduous journey through the African desert and jungle in the hope that sooner or later they would encounter European explorers or the British Army. The journey is full of dangers and adventures. The children, accompanied by two black slaves (a boy named Kali and a girl named Mea) whom Staś had freed from the Arabs, encounter a number of wonders and perils[2].

Soon Nel is stricken with malaria and is about to die. Staś, mad with grief, decides to go to what he thinks is a Bedouin camp and beg for quinine. When he gets to the camp he find out that it belongs to an old Swiss explorer named Linde. The man had been severely injured by a wild boar and is waiting for death. All of his African servants have fallen ill to sleeping sickness and die one after another. Staś becomes friend with Linde who generously supplies him with food, weapon, gunpowder and quinine. Thanks to the medicine, Nel recovers.

The group moves on to the village of Wa-Hima. The tribes-people, seeing Staś riding upon an elephant, honor him and Nel as a Good Mzimu (a good spirit/goddess). The group stays in the village a short time, for Kali is by birthright the prince of the Wa-Hima tribe and therefore well-known.

On reaching Kali's home village, the group learns that his tribe has been invaded by and attacked by their enemies since time immemorial, the Sambur tribe. Due to assistance from Kali's tribe and the guns carried by Staś and Nel, the war is won in the protagonist's favour. Because of his good nature, Staś and Nel command that the tribes-people of the Sambur tribe not be killed but rather united with the Wa-Hima.

Staś, Nel, Saba, King, Kali and 100 Sambur and Wa-Hima tribes-people move on to the east, which has not been mapped, in hope of reaching the Indian Ocean and being found by English explorers who might be searching for them. Kali has brought with him two witch doctors, fearing that they might plot against him while he is away from home. However, it finishes tragically for the group: both of the witch doctors steal food and the last of the water and escape.

Many of the tribes-people accompanying Nel and Staś die for lack of water. After the group has gone for at least three days without any water in the scorching dry desert, the children are saved at the last moment by two familiar officers who had recovered kites inscribed by Staś and Nel earlier in their plight describing their whereabouts and destination. Staś, Nel and Saba are reunited with their fathers and they return to Europe. Kali and his tribe members return to their settlement on Lake Rudolf.

• Nel Rawlison – 8-year-old English girl. She is very pretty and sweet. Although at the beginning of the novel she seems to be timid and shy, later she shows that she can be courageous and stubborn. She treats Staś with respect and obedience, and often looks up to him.
• Stanisław Tarkowski (dim. Staś) – a 14-year-old Polish boy. At the beginning of the novel he seems to be a little bit scornful and bigheaded. However, as the dramatic events develop, it is revealed that Staś is extremely chivalrous and willing to sacrifice his own life to save Nel whom he loves like his own sister.
• Kali – African boy from Wa-hima tribe, Staś's servant who quickly becomes his friend. He faithfully serves his master and helps him to go through the dangers of Africa. Kali became popular when a Polish colloquial saying about double standard was coined around the so-called "Kali's morality": "If somebody takes Kali's cow, it's a bad deed. If Kali takes somebody's cow, it's a good deed."
• Mea – African girl from the Dinka tribe, Nel's servant. Shy and quiet, she loves her little mistress and protects her from dangers.
• Władysław Tarkowski – Staś's widowed father, an engineer.
• George Rawlison – Nel's widowed father, a director of the Suez Canal Company.
• Chamis – one of the kidnappers. Earlier a servant of Staś and Nel's fathers.
• Idris – a Beduin, one of the Mahdi's followers. Relatively well-behaved towards the children, he admired Staś's courage. He was tasked with bringing the children safely to the Mahdi.
• Gebhr – the cruel younger brother of Idris.
• Mrs. Oliver – Nel's teacher, a Frenchoman.
• Linde – Swiss explorer, encountered by Staś.
• Smain – husband of Fatma, relative of the Mahdi.
• Caliopuli – Greek worker employed by the Mahdi.
• Nasibu – servant of Linde, after his death he joined with the children on their further journeys.
• Faru – leader of the Samburs, the tribe opposing Kali's tribe.
• M'Kunje and M'Rua – witch doctors of Wa-Hima, hostile to Kali.
• Doctor Clary – relative of Nel.
• Captain Glen – met by Staś and Nel in the train.
• Fatma – a relative of the Mahdi. Her detention was the reason for the abduction of Staś and Nel.

The book enjoyed immense popularity among readers upon its publication in 1911[3] and was translated into 21 languages becoming an international best-seller.[4] Wojciech Zembaty writes that the book "uses classic patterns of the adventure novel genre" and observes that "thanks to willpower, endurance and creativity [...] the travellers and castaways of these novels manage to survive in a hostile environment" citing Daniel Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (1874) as examples. He argues that after a century, the book is still a good read, the characters being simple but well-drawn. Staś, one of the main protagonists, has to confront his own self-image in the face of actual challenges and dangers as he tries to protect little Nel. He praised the book for plenty of dramatic, thrilling and epic moments.[5]

However, the book also received some criticism for the author's portrayal of 19th-century European imaginings of Africa and its people, which, according to contemporary historical and ethnological knowledge, can be considered biased or inadequate.[6] Literary critic Ludwik Stomma described the book as "uncritical apologia of 19th-century colonialism". He argues that the white characters in the book are presented as more complex comapred to the often one-dimensional depiction of non-European characters. He further points out that the author portrayed African indigenous people as very primitive despite the fact that before Sienkiewicz's trip to Africa in 1891, a number of fundamental ethnological works on the continent and the customs, social life and religious beliefs of its people had already been published. Stomma also states that Sienkiewicz showed the figure of Mahdi, who was the leader of an anti-colonial uprising, only in a negative and almost grotesque way and ignored to mention the mass extermination of indigenous people by British colonial forces quelling the rebellion.[7] According to Zembaty however, the issue of racial stereotypes in the book is not so obvious. He counters the argument about the novel's allegedly racist depiction of African characters by showing the example of the young prince Kali, liberated from slavery, who is "brave, creative and honourable". Kali saves the kids on a couple of occasions and stays with them in difficult moments, risking his own life. He later becomes a fair and successful leader of his people.[8]

According to sociologist Maciej Gdula, In Desert and Wilderness promotes a sense of superiority over the people of other races and shows how to celebrate one's own culture at the same time disregarding the Other and alien cultures.[9] However, just like other works by writers from this period including Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling or H. Rider Haggard, who met with similar criticisms, the book can also be seen as a product of the era in which Sienkiewicz lived and his views on Africa could be seen as a sort of historical testimony, a monument from the times, when Europe was narcissistic and superior, compared to the rest of the world, in terms of material and scientific progress.[10]

In 1990, the book was included on the list of obligatory reading for the fifth grade in Polish schools by the Ministry of National Education.[11][12]

The first movie version was directed by Władysław Ślesicki in 1973. It lasts about three hours and is composed of two parts which were shown separately in theaters. Work on it started in 1971 and it was released in 1973. The movie was filmed in Egypt, Sudan and Bulgaria, with an international cast and crew. A mini-series was created at the same time. This version was shown in the U.S. on HBO in fall 1975.

The 2001 version was directed by Gavin Hood in only about three months. It was filmed in South Africa, Tunisia and Namibia. The original director fell ill at the very beginning of filming and his role was taken by Hood. A mini-series was made at the same time.

• In 1961, a Polish writer and screenwriter Marian Brandys published Śladami Stasia i Nel (Following the Path of Staś and Nel) and, in 1962 a related story, Z Panem Biegankiem w Abisynii (In Abyssinia with Mister Bieganek).
• Władysław Ślesicki, the director of the 1973 movie released a book about making the movie, Z Tomkiem i Moniką w pustyni i w puszczy (In Desert and Wilderness with Tomek and Monika).
• In 1993, Wojciech Sambory (a pen name for a writing team) wrote Powrót do Afryki (A Return to Africa), as a sequel to the novel (published by Reporter-Oficyna Wydawnicza, ISBN 83-85189-54-8).
• The comic strip Nowe przygody Stasia i Nel (The New Adventures of Staś and Nel) from Piechur weekly magazine is another sequel to Sienkiewicz's novel. It was published online on Steampunk[13] in 2005.
• In 2014, Leszek Talko published a book Staś i Nel. Zaginiony klejnot Indii (Staś and Nel: The Lost Jewel of India), whose action takes place two years after the events from the original novel.[14]
• In 2017, Andrew Anzur Clement published in English the Keepers of the Stone trilogy, a continuation of Staś's and Nel's story partially inspired by Sienkiewicz's original work.[15]

• Mahdist Sudan
• The Tragedy of the Korosko (novel with a similar theme)
• Postcolonialism
• Imperialism
• Polish literature
• Bildungsroman

• In Desert and Wilderness at Project Gutenberg (1917 Drezmal translation)
• Through the Desert at Faded Page (Canada) (Mary Webb Artois translation)
• In Desert and Wilderness public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• The novel in Polish
• W pustyni i w puszczy (1973) at IMDb
• W pustyni i w puszczy (2001) at IMDb