ONE MAN IN THE WORLD

by James Barlow ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 13, 1966

A superior, literate drama about an expendable U.N. diplomat caught up in the racial fires of Angolique (read Angola), this is one of the best political novels in some time. The throw-away hero is a minor Canadian official in the General Assembly who is tapped to spearhead an investigating subcommittee devised to give a first-hand report on the violence in Angolique. Angolique is a colony of Portugal and the Portuguese officials are beset by black nationalists not only from within but also from Rhodesia and South Africa. And the Chinese Communists are also supplying the internal rebellion with arms. Although the West looks with favor upon self-rule for the black Africans, Portugal is a U.N. member and has eminently persuasive arguments about the madness of withdrawing Portuguese law and order from Angolique. The diplomat becomes the one man in the world with a dispassionate knowledge of both sides of the situation. Not only that, his investigations strip him of his faith in God, man, the U.N., his wife--until he is left with absolutely nothing but his integrity. This too is put to a final test when he must sacrifice his son to the higher good of a particular U.N. maneuver. Then, after the greatest possible losses, imprisonment, torture and humiliation, it is revealed to him that he has been the merest mockery of a pawn and sent upon a mission in which he is foredoomed to failure.... Atrocities abound, melodrama is relevant and not gratuitous, and the whole novel is deeply informed and honest.

Pub Date: Feb. 13, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1966

Categories: FICTION