Book description
For Nyallo, a little boy growing up in the Upper Nile region of
war-torn southern Sudan, his small village and its inhabitants
represented the whole universe. To him, the world outside, the world
beyond the shadows, was a fairyland and only there did tragedy and pain
exist. However, his eyes, blinded by childhood naivety, would soon be
opened and there would be no turning back. With a curiosity and wisdom
far greater than his years, Nyallo was forced to step across the line
between fairytales and reality, to face painful truths and to smell
death. Inspired and nurtured by the inner wisdom of his special friend,
an elderly man who was weak in body but strong in spirit and soul, he
embarked on a journey from boyhood to manhood, prepared to walk a
difficult path that would lead him into the real world fearlessly,
heralding a new dawn and the taste of freedom for a broken-spirited
people. This is a moving and poignant story of survival in the grip of
hopelessness, of the resilience of the soul through oppression, where
songs of death and doom are reborn as songs of life and hope through the
incredible gift of a deep and life-defining friendship. For Nyallo, a
little boy growing up in the Upper Nile region of war-torn southern
Sudan, his small village and its inhabitants represented the whole
universe. To him, the world outside, the world beyond the shadows, was a
fairyland and only there did tragedy and pain exist. However, his eyes,
blinded by childhood naivety, would soon be opened and there would be no
turning back. With a curiosity and wisdom far greater than his years,
Nyallo was forced to step across the line between fairytales and
reality, to face painful truths and to smell death. Inspired and
nurtured by the inner wisdom of his special friend, an elderly man who
was weak in body but strong in spirit and soul, he embarked on a journey
from boyhood to manhood, prepared to walk a difficult path that would
lead him into the real world fearlessly, heralding a new dawn and the
taste of freedom for a broken-spirited people. This is a moving and
poignant story of survival in the grip of hopelessness, of the
resilience of the soul through oppression, where songs of death and doom
are reborn as songs of life and hope through the incredible gift of a
deep and life-defining friendship.
