Thirty years ago, Pulitzer Prize--winning author and journalist
Philip Caputo crossed the deserts of Sudan and Eritrea on foot and
camelback, a journey that inspired his first novel, "Horn of
Africa, and awakened a lifelong fascination with Africa. His
travels have since taken him back to Sudan, as well as to Kenya,
Somalia, and Tanzania, and from those experiences he has fashioned
"Acts of Faith, his most ambitious novel. A stunning and timely
epic, it tells the stories of pilots, aid workers, missionaries,
and renegades struggling to relieve the misery wrought by the civil
war in Sudan.
The hearts of these men and women are in the right place, but as
they plunge into a well of moral corruption for which they are
ill-prepared, their hidden flaws conspire with circumstances to
turn their strengths-bravery, compassion, daring, and empathy-into
weaknesses. In pursuit of noble ends, they make ethical
compromises; their altruism curdles into self-righteous zealotry
and greed, entangling them in a web of conspiracies that leads,
finally, to murder. A few, however, escape the moral trap and find
redemption in the discovery that firm convictions can blind the
best-intentioned man or woman to the difference between right and
wrong.
Douglas Braithwaite, an American aviator who flies food and
medicine to Sudan's ravaged south, is torn between his altruism and
powerful personal ambitions. His partners are Fitzhugh Martin, a
multiracial Kenyan who sees Sudan as a cause that can give purpose
to his directionless life, and Wesley Dare, a hard-bitten bush
pilot who is not as cynical as he thinks he is and sacrifices all
for the woman he loves.
They are joined by two strong women: QuinetteHardin, an evangelical
Christian from Iowa who liberates slaves captured by Arab raiders
and who falls in love with a Sudanese rebel; and Diana Briggs, the
daughter of a family with colonial roots in Africa, who believes
that her love for her adopted continent might be enough to save it.
Pitted against them is Ibrahim Idris ibn Nur-el-Din, a fierce Arab
warlord whose obsessive quest for an escaped concubine undermines
his faith in the holy war he is waging against Sudan's southern
blacks.
In a harsh yet alluring landscape, these and other vividly realized
characters act out a drama of modern-day Africa. Grounded in the
reality of today's headlines, "Acts of Faith is a captivating novel
of human complexity that combines seriousness with all the
seductive pleasure of a masterly thriller.
General
Imprint: |
Random House
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Vintage Contemporaries |
Release date: |
May 2006 |
First published: |
May 2006 |
Authors: |
Philip Caputo
|
Dimensions: |
201 x 132 x 41mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
688 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-375-72597-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
0-375-72597-0 |
Barcode: |
9780375725975 |
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