A striking exploration of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where contradiction is not an exception but a way of life?part of Travel with a Writer, The Walking Tree's series pairing leading authors with the places they know best.

?Logic ends where Congo begins.? First arriving in 2008, Guillaume Jan has returned to the Congo again and again, drawn to a country that resists explanation at every turn. Vast and resource-rich yet marked by extreme inequality, shaped by a history of colonization and political upheaval, and alive with creativity, improvisation, and resilience, the Congo defies any single narrative.

Moving between cities, landscapes, and encounters, Jan traces a place where apparent contradictions coexist without resolution: wealth and poverty, instability and vitality, chaos and ingenuity. What emerges is not a system to be decoded, but a reality that must be experienced on its own terms. Clear-eyed, curious, and open to the unexpected, this is an exploration of a country that continually unsettles assumptions?and expands the boundaries of what it means to understand a place.