'Angel-haired' aid worker memoir ridiculed

Louise Linton says she intended to express her admiration for the Zambian people 

An actress, whose memoir about her student gap year trip doing aid work in Africa has provoked a large online backlash, says she is dismayed by the negative reaction to her book.

 
 Louise Linton has been accused of exhibiting a "white saviour complex" in "In Congo's Shadow: One girl's perilous journey to the heart of Africa" which recounts her time in Zambia where she volunteered as an 18-year-old in 1999.

Billed as "The inspiring memoir of an intrepid teenager who abandoned her privileged life in Scotland to travel to Zambia as a gap year student where she found herself inadvertently caught up in the fringe of the Congolese War," the book has aroused a flood of online comments and reviews, which have accused the author of being patronising and inaccurate.

The hashtag #LintonLies has been used more than 14,000 since times since an extract was published in the Telegraph newspaper on Monday.

 Many of those commenting are angry Zambians who say they don't recognise the country that Linton depicts.

In the book, Linton writes about a night she spent in hiding from the threat of "armed rebels" in her village and describes herself as a "central character" in the events.

 "I tried not to think what the rebels would do to the 'skinny white Muzungu with long angel hair' if they found me." A sentence that has offended many users on twitter.