The Devil That Danced on the Water

''She has lifted out of herself the emotional and cultural world of her childhood and represented it in scenes of startling beauty and tragedy. Few books merit being called courageous, this one does.''
Rachel Cusk, 'Evening Standard'

Aminatta Forna's intensely personal history is a passionate and vivid account of an African childhood, of an idyll which became the stuff of nightmare. As a child she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, danger, flight, the bitterness of exile in Britain, and the terrible consequences of her dissident father's stand against tyranny.

''Forna has written a book that is impossible to forget…This is an obsessive, driven, refreshing book about Africa, despotism and exile. It is also a beautifully drawn portrait of childhood…Teeming with life, anger, love…it is a triumph of life against the odds. And in its conclusion there is a sanity that is, simply, majestic.''
Christopher Hope, 'Independent'

''A deeply affecting and beautifully written book which transcends the sordid story of a power-hungry, murderous and corrupt regime…It emerges defiantly as an uplifting and marvellously readable memoir.''
Justin Marozzi, 'Financial Times'