Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen

January 1, 2015
Shannon (A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman, 2010), an international human rights activist and founder of the nonprofit Run for Congo Women, tells the harrowing story of a Congolese family torn apart by the ongoing threat of Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army.In her home of Portland, Oregon, the author regularly visited with her friend Francisca Thelin, a Congolese expatriate. Francisca confided tales about her safe, seemingly perfect African childhood growing up on her family's coffee plantation, followed by the intrusion of the menacing, violent Lord's Resistance Army. Having immigrated to the United States years before, Francisca lived well, though she was haunted by phone calls from her mother, Mama Koko, detailing the mounting dangers of life in Dungu. Over the course of a year, Mama Koko called nightly to recount the tragic news of the deaths of family members, friends and neighbors who were abducted, tortured and brutally killed by the LRA; some were even burned alive on Christmas Day. Together in 2012, Francisca and Shannon traveled to Africa to visit her family and see and hear for themselves the traumatic narratives of Mama Koko, her husband, Papa Alexander, and other relatives and locals desperate for their accounts to be heard. Shannon weaves together these nightmarish stories of survival and deep grief with the history of Mama Koko's life before the LRA invaded. She also provides details of Papa Alexander's wild, entertaining past and Francisca's struggle to reconcile her happy girlhood memories with the reality of unrelenting threats and cruelty. Shannon's book both offers a rich portrait of her subjects' lives and serves as a call to action. The author closes with a section called "What You Can Do Before Setting This Book Down," since "the damage and the structural issues in Congo's broken government that have allowed the violence to persist will take decades to heal." A highly personal and memorable story.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2015
Human-rights activist Shannon traveled to the Congo in 2008 with Congolese expat Francisca Thelin, who was returning to check on her family, including the indefatigable Mama Koko. Shannon's goal was to obtain first-person reports she could bring back to the U.S. of the brutality suffered in the region from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. At first the two women work their way through interviews like seasoned journalists, but the details quickly take their toll, especially on Thelin, who learns of the brutal beatings and deaths of many relatives. Shannon is dumbfounded by how easily the LRA came to dominate the region, thanks to the corruption of the Congolese army and the obliviousness of the UN. People come, they just talk, says Thelin's uncle. They just come for the big show. Shannon's struggle was to make her work more than a show, and she succeeds brilliantly. This compelling narrative is not easily forgotten, nor are the many people whose stories she collected. This is a valiant record of the testimonies of vital witnesses; readers will not be able to look away.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)