
An intimate & moving portrait of a family combined with an account of the events which swept through Africa in the post-independence period. Aminatta Forna`s intensely personal history is a passionate & vivid account of an African childhood
- of an idyll that became a nightmare. As a child she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, the bitterness of exile in Britain & the terrible consequences of her dissident father`s stand against tyranny. Mohamed Forna, a man of unimpeachable integrity & great charisma, was a new star in the political firmament Sierra Leone as the country faced its future as a fledgling democracy. Always a political firebr&, he was one of the first black students to come to Britain after the war. In Aberdeen he stole the heart of Aminatta`s mother, to the dismay of her Presbyterian parents, & returned with her to Sierra Leone. But the new ways of Western parliamentary democracy were tearing old Africa apart, giving rise only to dictatorships & corruption of hitherto undreamed-of magnitude. It was not long before Aminatta`s father languished in jail as a prisoner of conscience, & there was worse to come. Aminatta`s search for the truth that shaped both her childhood & the nation`s destiny begins among the country`s elite & takes her into the heart of rebel territory. Determined to break the silence surrounding her father`s fate, she ultimately uncovered a conspiracy that penetrated the highest reaches of government & forced the nation`s politicians & judiciary to confront their guilt.