Longest story ever published in Fast Company is in June issue

Well-known business journalist Richard Behar‘s opus in the June issue of Fast Company about China’s growing economic influence in Africa is long, really long.

So long that it’s the longest article ever published by the magazine at 18,700 words. It’s broken up into six parts — and 24 pages — to make it more palatable.

Editor Robert Safian writes in the issue that Behar was the first American journalist to enter Equatorial Guinea in three years. “He went into the forests of Mozambique, trailed bribe-paying loggers, accosted unsavory wheeler-dealers, and brought back a potentially deadly parasite to boot.” (Behar, who used to work at Fortune, actually leads the article discussing how he almost died from the illness.)

Safian added, “It’s the kind of article that people like me go into this business to help create. You’ll never look at the world the same way again.”

Read more here. The previous record holder for Fast Company? “Fantastic Voyage” by Charles Fishman in the February 2000 issue ran 10,000 words.