The Black Nile: One Man's Amazing Journey Through Peace and War on the World's Longest River - Hardcover
A spectacular modern-day adventure along the Nile River from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea
With news of tenuous peace in Sudan, foreign correspondent Dan Morrison bought a plank-board boat, summoned a childhood friend who'd never been off American soil and set out from Uganda, paddling the White Nile on a quest to reach Cairo-a trip that tyranny and war had made impossible for decades.
Morrison's chronicle is a mashup of travel narrative and reportage, packed with flights into the frightful and the absurd. Through river mud that engulfs him and burning marshlands that darken the sky, he tracks the snarl of commonalities and conflicts that bleed across the Nile valley, bringing to life the waters that connect the hardscrabble fishing villages of Lake Victoria to the floating Cairo nightclubs where headscarved mothers are entertained by gyrating male dancers. In between are places and lives invisible to cable news and opinion blogs: a hidden oil war that has erased entire towns, secret dams that will flood still more and contested borderlands where acts of compassion and ingenuity defy appalling hardship and waste of life. As Morrison dodges every imaginable hazard, from militia gunfire to squalls of sand, his mishaps unfold in strange harmony with the breathtaking range of individuals he meets along the way. Relaying the voices of Sudanese freedom fighters and escaped Ugandan sex slaves, desert tribesmen and Egyptian tomb raiders, The Black Nile culminates in a visceral understanding of one of the world's most elusive hotspots, where millions strive to claw their way from war and poverty to something better-if only they could agree what that something is, whom to share it with, and how to get there.
With the propulsive force of a thriller, The Black Nile is rife with humor, humanity and fervid insight-an unparalleled portrait of a complex territory in profound transition.
With news of tenuous peace in Sudan, foreign correspondent Dan Morrison bought a plank-board boat, summoned a childhood friend who'd never been off American soil and set out from Uganda, paddling the White Nile on a quest to reach Cairo-a trip that tyranny and war had made impossible for decades.
Morrison's chronicle is a mashup of travel narrative and reportage, packed with flights into the frightful and the absurd. Through river mud that engulfs him and burning marshlands that darken the sky, he tracks the snarl of commonalities and conflicts that bleed across the Nile valley, bringing to life the waters that connect the hardscrabble fishing villages of Lake Victoria to the floating Cairo nightclubs where headscarved mothers are entertained by gyrating male dancers. In between are places and lives invisible to cable news and opinion blogs: a hidden oil war that has erased entire towns, secret dams that will flood still more and contested borderlands where acts of compassion and ingenuity defy appalling hardship and waste of life. As Morrison dodges every imaginable hazard, from militia gunfire to squalls of sand, his mishaps unfold in strange harmony with the breathtaking range of individuals he meets along the way. Relaying the voices of Sudanese freedom fighters and escaped Ugandan sex slaves, desert tribesmen and Egyptian tomb raiders, The Black Nile culminates in a visceral understanding of one of the world's most elusive hotspots, where millions strive to claw their way from war and poverty to something better-if only they could agree what that something is, whom to share it with, and how to get there.
With the propulsive force of a thriller, The Black Nile is rife with humor, humanity and fervid insight-an unparalleled portrait of a complex territory in profound transition.
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About the Author:
Dan Morrison's reporting has taken him from barbecues with the Latin Kings street gang to ride-alongs with the police assassins of Bombay. His dispatches from Africa, South Asia and the Middle East have appeared in Slate, Newsday, National Geographic News, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor and U.S. News & World Report. He lives with his wife and daughter in New York.
From AudioFile:
From the start, Sean Runnette sets the tone for Dan Morrison's journal of his trip from Kampala to Cairo. Runnette ably contrasts Morrison's outer confidence with his inner fears of encountering war or crocodiles. He wryly delivers Morrison's descriptions of the busy city of Kampala and the way he and a friend overpacked. It makes for fascinating listening as Morrison reflects on the ironies of war, recounts conflicts with bureaucracy and militia, talks about a stop at a leper colony, and recalls his relatively luxurious wait for a barge. Morrison's words paint a scene well, and Runnette makes the most of them. It's a journey for the ear well worth taking. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherViking
- Publication date2010
- ISBN 10 0670021989
- ISBN 13 9780670021987
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages320
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