WRITTEN ON A STRANGER’S MAP
“He had always said that when he no longer had the interest to marvel at the grand piles of clouds seen from an aeroplane window, or to imagine how it might be to fall through them into the clear air below, or to wonder why the lines of breaking surf did not move towards the shore, or who it was emerging from a hut into a forest clearing at first light, he had always said that when he would rather read the in flight magazine, he would know that he was lost.”
An intelligent and moving novel of Africa today: its people and problems, its violence and corruption. It is the story of a decent, fallible man, emeshed in passion and revolution.
Hugh Fuller, a high flying aid expert, lands dazed in the West African state of Kangaba. His life of perpetual travel in the unreal atmosphere of international finance has separated him from his family and left him confused in time and place. In run-down Kangaba he comes to a halt and his unexamined past assails him. Emerging from his confusion, he picks up not his old life but a life in Kangaba, and is drawn back into reality by old and new friends and a new love. But Kangaba is an insecure retreat, its borders illusions in a world of foreign power. His attempts and the attempts of those around him to find a place for themselves on a map drawn by strangers prove complicated and dangerous.
REVIEWS
“Written in taut resonant prose, this is a commmittedly powerful book.”
“Luminous clarity.”
“Fastidious economy.”
“The characters come alive at a touch.”
