Book description
In this assured debut about loneliness and passion in Africa, Sue
Eckstein enthrals with a deliciously intricate plot, compelling
characters and razor-sharp dialogue.
West Africa in the early 1990s. Isabel Redmond is tiring of her
iconoclastic husband's penchant for pendulous black breasts; the High
Commissioner and his wife Fenella are both enjoying illicit affairs;
an old English judge is wandering through the scrub following a tribe
of Fulani herdsmen; Bob Newpin is about to make a killing in
timeshares; and just what Father Seamus is up to is anyone's guess.
Enter new diplomat Daniel Maddison on his first posting abroad.
Rebelling against the endless rounds of cocktail parties, golf and
gossip, he finds himself drawn to people and places that lie way
beyond the experience of his High Commission colleagues -- and
specifically to the dusty warehouse in the heart of the city where a
thin white woman is silently measuring out lengths of brightly
coloured cloth.
Sue Eckstein worked for VSO for many years in London, Bhutan and the
Gambia. Now a lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, she is
also working on a PhD in creative writing at the University of Sussex.
Her plays include The Tuesday Group, first performed in London in 2003,
as well as Kaffir Lilies ('Really wonderful - a first rate production'
Nell Dunn), Laura and Old School Ties ('Sparky and intriguing, written
and performed with a real edge' Guardian) all for BBC Radio 4. The
Cloths of Heaven is her first novel; Myriad will publish her second,
Interpreters, in September 2011.
