Posts Tagged ‘Uganda fiction’

Media Center: ‘Thirty Girls’ by Susan Minot

January 23rd, 2014

WHO: Susan Minot

WHAT: THIRTY GIRLS, a novel

WHEN: Published by Knopf February 11, 2014

WHERE: The story is set in Uganda.

WHY: “Spellbinding.
“Rebels in the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda burst into a convent dormitory, seize 139 schoolgirls, and march them off into the night. Sister Giulia follows and bravely argues for their release. She returns with 109. The outlaws keep 30, including smart, courageous Esther.
“Jane, an American writer and youngish widow, visits a friend in Kenya, sexy, generous Lana, and takes up with Harry, who is passionate about paragliding—a poetic and apt embodiment of the illusion of freedom: though you feel exhilarated in flight, you are at the mercy of forces beyond your control. Jane is on her way to Uganda to speak with young women at a camp for traumatized children who escaped their enslavement to the psychotic rebels. Lana, Harry, a wealthy American businessman, and a French documentarian decide, cavalierly, to accompany her.
“In her first novel in more than a decade, spellbinding Minot, a writer of exquisite perception and nuance, contrasts Esther’s and Jane’s radically different, yet profoundly transforming journeys in a perfectly choreographed, slow-motion, devastatingly revealing collision of realities.
“So sure yet light is Minot’s touch in this master work, so piercing yet respectful her insights into suffering and strength, that she dramatizes horrific truths, obdurate mysteries, and painful recognition with both bone-deep understanding and breathtaking beauty.” —Donna Seaman, in a starred review for BOOKLIST

“A haunting novel.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“This deeply affecting book manages to express
weighty sentiments and horrific events with subtlety and poetry.”

—Lauren Gilbert, in a starred review for LIBRARY JOURNAL

Jacket photoFrom the first lines of the book: The night they took the girls Sister Giulia went to bed with only the usual amount of worry and foreboding and rubbing of her knuckles. She said her extra prayer that all would stay peaceful, twisted down the rusted dial of her kerosene lamp and tucked in the loose bit of mosquito net under the mattress.

Media Resources:
About the book | About the author | Download the jacket or the author photo

Publicist for this title:
Kathy Zuckerman | 212-572-2105 | kzuckerman@randomhouse.com