A thrilling war remembrance, as moving as it is historically instructive.
In this memoir, a doctor recounts working in Ethiopia as its civil war rises to a fevered pitch and her struggle to leave safely with an infant girl she intends to adopt.
Davis (Searching for Sitala Mata, 2017) longed for a respite from her work as a physician for UNICEF in Senegal, and headed for Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. But she had more than restorative leisure on her mind—she was interested in pursuing a position with WHO as an epidemiologist battling the spread of meningitis, a deadly problem throughout Africa. In addition, she wanted to adopt a child, specifically an infant daughter. She surmised that the process in Ethiopia would likely be less bureaucratically onerous and expensive than in the United States as well as less prejudiced against older mothers—Davis was 43 years old at the time. But for all its beauty and culture, Ethiopia also had an “authoritarian government” riven by violent internal conflicts. And armed rebels in the north agitating for political autonomy were increasingly making progress. The author learned that boys as young as 14 were disappearing—recruited to join the conflict as soldiers—and that families had begun to hide their male members. The situation in the capital worsened with alarming speed, until the American embassy, followed by the United Nations, ordered the evacuations of nonessential personnel, a deterioration portrayed by Davis with the artful drama of a novelist. Obeying some inner voice, she chose to stay, a moment poignantly conveyed in her memoir: “I replaced the phone in its cradle and took a deep breath. I sat there letting the enormity of the situation sink into my brain. I had just volunteered to stay in a war zone because my intuition was telling me to stay.” The story is a gripping one, and crescendos with the doctor ultimately meeting the orphaned child she knew “in an instant” would be the girl she would adopt. In addition to a riveting account of her personal experiences, a recollection aided by black-and-white photographs from various sources, Davis also provides a thoughtful synopsis of the history that led Ethiopia to such peril.
A thrilling war remembrance, as moving as it is historically instructive.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9993034-4-3
Page Count: 228
Publisher: KonjitPublications
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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