The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest

From Publishers Weekly Forna saw her father for the last time on July 30, 1974; she was 10 years old. In this harrowing memoir-cum-detective story, journalist Forna searches for the truth about her father's execution in Sierra Leone after his treason conviction for allegedly attempting a coup upon the government in which he had once been a cabinet minister. Mohamed Forna, a British-educated doctor and activist in what was, in the 1960s, a fledgling democracy extricating itself from British colonialist rule, resigned from what had become a dictatorship rife with corruption and chaos. The consequences of that resignation culminated in eight executions and precipitated the descent into anarchy of Africa's poorest nation. Forna writes with a compelling mix of distance and anguish, intent on explaining her father's death and reclaiming his memory. Lush descriptions of her idyllic childhood provide eerie counterpoint to chilling depictions of the hell Sierra Leone had become upon her return in recent years, a place where bands of child warriors, hacking off limbs as both punishment and warning, have created a mutilated populace. The poverty her father tried to fight remains the only constant in the war-torn land. A harsh critic of her father's executioners, Forna nevertheless equivocates on the dictatorships that have wreaked havoc throughout Africa, querying her own identity as a diaspora mixed-race Afro-European. Reminiscent of Isabelle Allende's House of the Spirits, Forna's work is a powerfully and elegantly written mix of complex history, riveting memoir and damning exposx82Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Forna's father, Mohamed, was a leading politician in newly liberated Sierra Leone but landed in jail as a prisoner of conscience when democracy turned to dictatorship. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From The New Yorker In 1975, Mohamed Forna, a doctor and leading Sierra Leonean dissident, was executed for treason. A quarter century later, his daughter, who was ten when he was arrested, began to investigate his death. Her lucid, exacting memoir recounts indelible scenes: in bed with malaria, she watches a soldier ransack her room; when her stepmother goes to plead for her father's life, Aminatta asks her to get the President's autograph. She interviews the men who gave false testimony against her father, and discerns in their matter-of-fact responses a "lack of expectation" that defines life in Sierra Leone after decades of violence. In a telling episode, her stepmother takes pity on one of these witnesses, who is now destitute, and hires him as a cook. The author wonders if it is in this way, "together under the same roof," that she and her countrymen must learn to live with the past. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker From Booklist Forna was only a child when her father, Mohamed, was taken by the police to a Sierra Leone jail for his supposed involvement in an assassination conspiracy. Mohamed, a brilliant and kind physician, met his wife, Maureen, when he studied in Scotland. They married against the wishes of her family, and after Mohamed's older brother died, he brought his wife and their three children to a small town in Sierra Leone. Mohamed was the only doctor in the town, but soon he found another calling: politics. He joined the All People's Congress party, hoping to break Sierra Leone's People's Party's stronghold on parliamentary positions. Despite military intervention, the APC took the many seats they won, and Mohamed became the minister of finance. But Mohamed's political troubles were not at an end, as he saw his party become as corrupt as SLPP had been. He was eventually arrested and executed for treason. Forna's stunning memoir is both a tribute to her brave father and an important look at the sad state of politics in Sierra Leone. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Read more