Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Random House (2009), Edition: First Edition, 304 pages
Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder returns with the extraordinary true story of Deo, a young man who arrives in America from Burundi in search of a new life. After surviving a civil war and genocide, he ekes out a precarious existence delivering groceries, living in Central Park, and learning English by reading dictionaries in bookstores until he begins to meet the strangers who will change his life, pointing him eventually in the direction of Columbia University, medical school, and a life devoted to healing.
Original publication date
2009
Media reviews
Mr. Kidder’s prose handles beautifully, but there are places it can’t take you, moral and intellectual territory that remain out of reach... I am being hard, I fear, on a book that I read with great interest.
63-year-old Tracy Kidder may have just written his finest work — indeed, one of the truly stunning books I’ve read this year.
It's hard for the reader to escape the conclusion that Deogratias can live with what happened and build his hospital and do good only by lying to himself about the nature of the recent past.
This raises the chewy problem of why Kidder is telling this story. Is it primarily an inspirational tale of
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an immigrant-made-good, a repudiation of Lou Dobbs-style bigotry? If so, his book succeeds 10 times over in an uncomplicated way. Or does Kidder believe primarily in the need to record accurately what happened during the darkest moments in human history?
If this is his goal, then he is—subtly, sympathetically—chiding his subject. Show Less
Once again Tracy Kidder has written about someone who cares deeply about improving health care for the poorest of the poor. Burundi is a small landlocked country in Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west.
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Burundi is one of the ten poorest countries in the world
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Booklist
Kidder uses Deo’s experiences to deliver a very personal and harrowing account of the ethnic genocide in East Central Africa.
Washington Post
Kidder tells us too little and then too much, glossing over material he knows better than we do and then over-explaining things we know perfectly well. He inserts himself into the narrative and indulges in inane asides. But for all these flaws, the sheer power of Deo's story shines through. We
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cannot help but be in awe of this gentle cicerone who survives war's ghastly labyrinth to emerge a better man. Show Less
Publishers Weekly
Deo's experience is conveyed with a remarkable depth of vision and feeling. Kidder renders his subject with deep yet unfussy fidelity and the conflict with detail and nuance.
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