Drink the Bitter Root

November 28, 2011
In his latest travelogue, Geddes (Sailing Home) takes us on a dizzying spin through five sub-Saharan countries, asking why the international justice system and foreign aid have failed to bring peace to the region. Beginning in Rwanda and zigzagging through nearby Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Somaliland, Geddes encounters similar problems: poverty, sexual violence, genocide, kidnappings, and government oppression. In his search for answers, Geddes attends a hearing by the Gacaca (a traditional Rwandan court), meets an official from the International Criminal Court, and interviews child soldiers and rape and mutilation survivors, trying to probe the gap between the noble aims of international justice and aid organizations and the harsh reality of corrupt regimes, interminable bureaucracy, and foreign corporations exploiting ethnic conflicts in their resource grab. Although the book provides an overview of the region’s morass of internecine feuds, it lacks the historical context that would allow a real sense of the conflicts to emerge. Still, when Geddes reflects on “awkwardly elegant” camels crossing a desert road, a church piled with bodies, or a pair of AK-47s lying barrels crossed on the sand as their owners splash in the surf, these moments glow with the stark beauty and ugliness of rich, though poverty-stricken, lands. Agent: Don Sedgwick, Transatlantic Literary Agency (Canada).

December 1, 2011
Internationally acclaimed travel writer Geddes confesses a long fascination with Africa, deeply affected by literature such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and troubling news accounts of unrest, violence, and instability. At 68, he finally realized a youthful dream to experience Africa and offers a very personal first-person diary of his travels. He begins at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and travels through Rwanda and Uganda, moving on to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and into Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somaliland, chronicling incredible stories of survival of genocide. But he also turns a critical eye toward the lingering shadow of colonialism and the Cold War as well as the Western government and commercial interests that continue to motivate the kind of unrest that has led to ethnic violence. He recounts indigenous efforts to search for justice, out of the spotlight of the international courts, in a space where people long for restorativenot vengefuljustice that reintegrates the victims and perpetrators of horrific crimes. Geddes is unsparing in his look at human weakness, including his own, in a search for redemption in the face of violence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)