UP IN MALI

In Thorpe’s thriller, an American academic in search of a rare manuscript in Mali is suddenly entangled in a civil war.

In 2012,an unnamed college professor from the University of California, Berkeley, travels to Mali, partly as a matter of scholarly interest and partly to partake of the services of local sex workers. Also, he works for a manuscript collector named Foraes-Muriat, and he hopes to make enough money from their collaboration to help his soon-to-be ex-wife start anew in Tucson, Arizona, and pay his daughter’s college tuition. However, Mali becomes increasingly dangerous as war erupts; Tuareg and Arab Muslim jihadis declare their independence from the government in the quest to establish their own theocracy. As the violence escalates, particularly in the northern part of the country, the French military moves in. Despite the gathering volatility, Foraes-Muriat convinces the professor to travel north to procure an authentic copy of the Tarikh al fattash, a manuscript that promises to be of revolutionary significance. Lured by money, the professor accepts despite the danger he’ll surely face, and he comes to have doubts about Foraes-Muriat’s true intentions—a predicament that forces him to confront the thorny question of whether he’s a scholar working to preserve a culture or a colonialist thief. Over the course of the novel, Thorpe astutely depicts the complex political and cultural contours of Mali. Also, with unflinching bluntness, he describes the dissolution of the professor, who sets his sights on a new life with Molly, one of his students who’s more than 30 years his junior. However, the overall bleakness of the novel, which presents an unremitting portrayal of a dark nihilism, finally becomes exhausting, and the conclusion is less a denouement than a simple terminus. In the end, many readers may not feel that the novel’s artistic and intellectual offerings compensate for its moral austerity.

An intelligent account of the political chaos in Mali that wallows in a tone of amoral coldness.