Snippet: Prince Ali Raji - the African Magician
Snippet: In this short post, we explore a snippet of a war-related story about an African magician, Prince Ali Raji. Before becoming a magician, George Bondinei served as a lieutenant in the German military, presumably the army. Pre-World War One, he was likely living in one of Germany ’ s African colonies, such as Togoland, Kamerun (Cameroon), German Southwest Africa (modern-day Namibia) and German East Africa (comprising present-day Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi). The Germans recruited soldiers from their colonies to fight the Allies there, while some also served on the Western Front. After the war ended, Bondinei appears to have made his way to America, where he studied conjuring, briefly, with William Davis Le Roy (or Leroy). Le Roy ran a shop and “School of Magic” in Boston, Massachusetts from 1893 through to his death in 1919. Post-war, Bondinei toured theatres as Prince Ali Raji–the African magician. He likely started off on America...