A fictionalized story of the native Sudanese people’s struggle for independence against the British Empire and other colonial forces in order to form the short-lived state of Mahdiya.
A complex saga unfolded at the intersection of the Blue and White Nile Rivers in Northeastern Africa during the Mahdist revolution of late-19th century. What’s more strange, however, is what happened after the revolution had seemingly ended. For those not familiar, the area now known as the Sudan was once controlled by the Egyptians, who were themselves ostensibly subjects of the Ottoman Empire but were in actuality controlled by the British. Thus, a microcosm of 19th-century imperialism existed on the shores of the two Niles, as the Anglo-Egyptian army’s garrison across the river from an old Mahdist fishing town became the crucible of a colonial uprising. The book revels in the intrigue and personal motivations capable of superseding an already bewildering network of alliances and bringing down the leaders of the two factions. Ertur excels at creating three-dimensional characters, whether the stately yet fearsome Muhammed Ahmed or the conspiring Yakub and Fadl al Maula. He rewrites history as fiction and imagines dialogue in the best way possible—with respect for the characters and their intentions. Even more impressive is his cinematic touch with landscapes and battle scenes, from the cool relief of a desert oasis to the jarring image of a mysterious, headless body floating in the river. However, for as well-written and comprehensive as the book is, its subject is still so insular that this work of tremendous merit may struggle to find a wide audience. (Weighing in at 800+ pages, the book is physically imposing as well.) That’s a shame, for with Ertur’s skill and enthusiasm for making history come alive, should he choose to tackle a more widely appreciated subject, that book would stand a good chance of becoming a bestseller. As it is, should you have an interest in the collision of cultures that affected the formation of the state of Mahdiya, this is the book for you. A thoughtful, diligent and all-around excellent ground-level view of the swirling issues at play in a colonial revolution.
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456320522
Page Count: 815
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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