Book description
In this moving and unforgettable narrative journalist Daniel Bergner
travels into the heart of Sierra Leone, a country torn apart by war.
This is the story of the people he encounters in a realm of fire and
jungle as they rebuild their lives: Lamin, who lost his hands to save
his daughter; Komba, child soldier and sometime cannibal; Neall Ellis,
the mercenary pilot with a conscience; Valentine Strasser the
embittered ex-dictator; and the Western outsiders trying to save a
land of startling beauty and brutality.
Shocking, often heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful, Soldiers of
Light is a story of survival and a haunting work of literary reportage.
Daniel Bergner is an acclaimed journalist. Based in Manhattan, he has
travelled throughout Africa, from Liberia to Sudan, and is a contributor
to Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, and the New Yorker. Soldiers
of Light won an Overseas Press Club Award for international reporting
and was named a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times. It has
recently been longlisted for the Lettres Ulysses Award for the Art of
Reportage.
