Description: Esther is a Ugandan teenager abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to witness and commit unspeakable atrocities. She is struggling to survive, to escape, and to find a way to live with what she has seen and done. Jane is an American journalist who has traveled to Africa, hoping to give a voice to children like Esther and to find her center after a series of failed relationships. In unflinching prose, Minot interweaves their stories, giving us razor-sharp portraits of two extraordinary young women confronting displacement, heartbreak, and the struggle to wrest meaning from events that test them both in unimaginable ways.
Brief description:
Susan Minot is an award-winning novelist and short story writer whose books include Evening, which was adapted into the feature film of the same name starring Meryl Streep. She attended Brown University and received her MFA degree in creative writing from Columbia University.
Review Quotes:
"This long-awaited novel combines the stories of a Ugandan girl abducted by a militant group and an American writer covering the violence. It's heavy subject matter, to be sure, but Minot transcends the brutality with the overwhelming power of her prose."
-- "Entertainment Weekly"