"A mannered account of a biracial woman raised by a white family in West Virginia who was reunited joyfully with her African family . . . The juxtaposition of the two narratives is deliberately jarring. While Culberson was being crowned Homecoming Queen, her family and other Mende people faced ambush, amputations—a favorite terror tactic of the rebels—and homelessness. As a girl growing up, Culberson was accused by other blacks of not being 'black enough' . . . Culberson's wrenching coming-of-age tale ably chronicles her love and acceptance by both of her families . . . Inspiring."—Kirkus Reviews

“Reading The Invisible Cure is like traveling into remote and hard-to-comprehend territory with an unblinking and sure-footed guide . . . [Epstein] teaches me things I didn’t know. Her rigorous reporting unearths new findings among old, worn-out issues. And the evidence she puts forward could provide a roadmap for comprehensive prevention programs that incorporate teaching abstinence, using condoms and, most critically, emphasizing fidelity.”—John Donnelly, The New York Times Book Review

"Petina Gappah's stories range from scathing satire of Zimbabwe's ruling elite to earthy comedy to sensitive accounts of the sufferings of humble victims of the regime. Gappah is a fine writer and a rising star of Zimbabwean literature."—J. M. Coetzee

"[This] newest collection of stories, Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black, finds Gordimer poking at embers of the fire that has fueled her work since the very beginning, more than half a century ago: politics, both racial and sexual; our responsibilities to unknown (and perhaps unknowable) others; and, especially, the dangers of delving into history without adequate preparation . . . Nadine Gordimer is more interesting, and provocative, than most."—The Washington Post

"Greene ably dons the mantle of historian, recounting Ethiopian history; and that of the science writer, exploring the origins of the AIDS virus; and of the social commentator, taking to task the drug companies and Western politicians who should have done more much sooner to help avert disaster. She writes simply and declaratively but also cleverly."—Bill Eichenberger, The Columbus Dispatch

"Harrowing. The reader is drawn in, in effect eavesdropping on a casual conversation among killers . . . Readers who can get beyond their (justified) initial horror will find a wealth of detail here about the genocide."—Alison Des Forges, The Washington Post Book World

"'Why keep on?' asks Claudine Kayitesi, a Tutsi survivor living in relative peace in Nyamata, Rwanda. Her question is not a philosophical one, though that would be understandable given what she has experienced—rape, displacement, the murder of a sister and many others. Rather, her query is directed at the persistent questions of the French journalist Jean Hatzfeld, who has returned to the war-torn landscape he wrote about in two previous books, The Machete Season and Life Laid Bare, to speak again to survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. Why Hatzfeld keeps on asking questions is among the many thought-provoking issues at the heart of his new book, The Antelope's Strategy. Seven years after his reporting for Machete Season, Hatzfeld finds a much-changed Rwanda: The terrors of war have been replaced by an awkward—and sometimes dangerous—atmosphere of forced reconciliation. Some Hutu prisoners have been released or have returned from exile to live among the families of those they killed. 'Not one prisoner came asking for forgiveness,' says Kayitesi. A Hutu ex-convict notes, 'I was charged, I was convicted, I was pardoned. I did not ask to be forgiven.' Hatzfeld captures this tension gracefully, weaving lengthy interview excerpts with his own artfully written observations. The result is a book that illustrates vividly the thorny realities that accompany survival and appeasement. 'People are living peacefully, but actually they are avoiding one another,' Kayitesi comments in the book's final pages. 'We'll be humble and nice, we'll share, we'll cooperate as we should. But believing them is unthinkable.'"—Nora Krug, The Washington Post

"Remember, this is a little kid, not even 10 years old, all alone. Hatred, by now, is the only thing that sustains him, hatred for his father, who so brutally double-crossed him, hatred for the Arabs, who he presumes are responsible for this war. There's no glamour here, no pitched battles, only unimaginable misery. Finally, after about two years in the camp, he's recruited into the SPLA, and his real troubles begin. He's beaten and tortured in every possible fashion . . . When he finally does get to kill a few Arabs, he feels no sense of triumph, just sadness. They're human, too, it seems. A couple of miracles happen . . . we know there is a happy ending; otherwise, there wouldn't be this book. Jal becomes a believing Christian and gospel singer. He sets up an organization to help lost boys, but he's  . . . often tired and sad and lonely, but in War Child he succeeds in making this crazy war and all its ramifications utterly grounded, specific and real . . . You'll come away from this book loving Emmanuel Jal."—Carolyn See, The Washington Post Book World

"Zakes Mda's fifth novel, The Whale Caller, is an oddball love story, wonderfully timeless and familiar . . . With an offhanded mastery of lyrical language, this gifted storyteller's prose shimmers without extravagance. As if awash in unremitting sun, The Whale Caller begins as a reverie, illuminating the beauty of imperfect love and the thrill of struggling to maintain it. Yet in the end, beyond the whimsy and whales, the deeper, darker concern here is not so much the fragility of love, but the fragility of life itself when one surrenders wholly to the foolish heart."—The Washington Post Book World

"Takes the traditional pattern of a picaresque novel—an episodic recounting of roguish schemes gone awry—and decorates it with a richly textured overlay of embroidery, applique, collage and found art . . . Mda writes about hardscrabble lives without dwelling on the hardscrabble . . . Mda's elegant patchwork of clever storytelling, wry characterization and good-natured humor is more than enough."—John R. Alden, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“The country's agonies are far from over, but, in Bryan Mealer's new book All Things Must Fight to Live, they now at least have their definitive account . . . It is Mealer's gift that even when he is covering what is, journalistically, well-worn territory—the fog of war, the addictive and atrophied life of a combat reporter—his writing is not only fresh but empathetic . . . With the maturity and talent he displays in this book, Mealer could have a dazzling future as a chronicler of distant lands. He has already set a new standard by which all correspondents might approach other forgotten wars.”—Time

“An incendiary new book . . . Here is a refreshing voice . . . What makes Dead Aid so powerful is that it’s a double-barrelled shotgun of a book. With the first barrel, Moyo demolishes all the most cherished myths about aid being a good thing. But with the second, crucially, she goes on to explain what the West could be doing instead.”—Christopher Hart, The Daily Mail

"Tyrant, killer, buffoon: Idi Amin was unforgettable. But his victims have largely been forgotten. Andrew Rice rescues one man’s memory, gives him a face and a voice and lets him speak for a multitude of the dead. This is reporting at its best—as gripping as any murder mystery, but far more important, because every painful word is true."—Robert Guest, former Africa editor of The Economist and author of The Shackled Continent