THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

The descriptive and engrossing novel portrays an Australian reporter’s journey of war to embattled Eritrea.

 

Darcy, a reporter for the “Times,” in Australia, eager to gain another assignment in Africa, agrees to conditions set by an Eritrean Colonel.   Darcy travels to Khartoum where he meets three traveling companions, an agriculturalist who is in love with a Somali woman held in prison in Ethiopia, a daughter searching for her father, a famous photo journalist, and a woman from the Anti-Slavery Society whose mission is to teach the women of the Sudan, and surrounding countries, not to mutilate their daughters.

The travelers witness the horrors of war first-hand, the ravages, the evils of torture, and the sting of betrayal.

 

The novel sheds light on a subject largely unknown, the wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea.  Both sides endured the causalities and atrocities of war, which started with Eritrea cutting Ethiopia’s access to the sea, which Ethiopia lost and has never regained.  Eritrea has also been cited by the U.N. and by the Hague for unjustified attacks on Ethiopia.

Eritrea also disallowed relief fights of food from the World Food Program.  In 2007, Eritrea banned female circumcision.

 

Note:

The extent of barbarity in the absence of values is the moral theme of Keneally’s works.  Keneally authored several novels including “Schindler’s Ark”, in 1982, which was later produced in the film, “Schindler’s List.”