Aminatta Forna - The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter’s Quest

Praise for

The Devil That Danced on the Water:

In this heartbreaking memoir of Forna's quest to find the truth about her father, she outlines the grim prospects of a poor and largely illiterate populace that still suffers the legacies of colonial exploitation, the misguided concept of benign dictatorship, and a brutal civil war.

Emily Mead, Entertainment Weekly

Reminiscent of Jung Chang's acclaimed Wild Swans ... Forna provides a peek into the black hole of time, giving a view of so much of Africa that is mythical, ephemeral and intangible.... Egregious episodes of political genocide and everyday barbarismall met with a resounding global disregardare interwoven through Forna's fond childhood memories.... [ The Devil That Danced on the Water is] the story not only of Africa's political turmoil but also of its promise and potential.

Charlotte Moore, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Forna capably fills in the events of Sierra Leone's complex and confusing history.... When Forna loses herself in the bittersweet memories of her childhood, her descriptions dance on the page.... By sharing the travails of her vivid journey, she casts light into the darkness of Sierra Leone's history.

Heather Hewett, The Christian Science Monitor

Riveting... Memoir seems to soft a word for Aminatta Forna's The Devil That Danced on the Water.... The intimacy of a child's domestic world contrasts acutely with the looming political backdrop.... Mohamed Sorie Forna was the kind of young man upon whom a society's hopes are built.

Eve MacSweeney, Vogue

Poignant... Stunning... Amazing... What isn't hard is to feel her deep sense of disappointment about what happened to her father and her country.

Steve Galpern, The Rocky Mountain News

Riveting [and] fascinating... As Forna gleans bits of truth from a mass of lies... her father gains new definition, and the story gains new power.

Jay Goldin, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

Forna's stunning memoir is both a tribute to her brave father and an important look at the sad state of politics in Sierra Leone.

Kristine Huntley, Booklist

More gripping than a political thriller... The Devil That Danced on the Water is Aminatta Foraa's attempt to make coherent a personal fate inextricably tied to the fate of a nation.

Julie Brickman, San Diego Union-Tribune

An evocative, disturbing mixture of memoir and investigative reporting... [Forna's] re-creation of the country she knew as a child and the father she idolized is deft and moving.

Sarah Goodyear, Time Out New York

[A] moving account... A vivid history of [Forna's] years as a child moving back and forth between Africa and the UK, borne on the shifting wind of her father's changing status in Sierra Leone politics.

K. A. Dilday, New York Sun

An expos as gripping as it is devastating.

Vicki Cameron, East Bay Express

Harrowing... Forna writes with a compelling mix of distance and anguish, intent on explaining her father's death and reclaiming his memory. Lush descriptions of her idyllic childhood provide eerie counterpoint to chilling depictions of the hell Sierra Leone had become upon her return in recent years.... Reminiscent of Isabelle Allende's House of Spirits , Forna's work is a powerfully and elegantly written mix of complex history, riveting memoir and damning expos.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

An important work... More than a tale of vindication, this book is filled with powerful descriptions and moving details.... Highly recommended.

A.O. Edmonds, Library Journal

An extraordinary and gripping story... Forna's book glows with compassion. A modern classic, of which her courageous father would have been proud.

Peter Godwin, author of Mukiwa

An engrossing account of pain, love and discovery that had the capacity not only to make me understand but also to move me to tears.

Gillian Slovo, author of Every Secret Thing

A searing indictment of African tyranny mingled with bittersweet childhood memories.

Kirkus Reviews

I had tears in my eyes almost the whole way through, although it is the least sentimental of books.... Forna manages, quite brilliantly, to evoke not only all the honor and pity that is in her family's story, but its beauty and tenderness too.

Katie Hickman, author of Daughters of Britannia

This is a book of quite extraordinary power and beauty. Aminatta Forna has excavated not only her memory but the hidden recesses of the heart.

Fergal Keane

Impossible to forget... An obsessive, driven, refreshing book about Africa, despotism and exile. It is also a beautifully drawn portrait of childhood.... A memorial teeming with life, anger, love.

Christopher Hope, The Independent

Devastating... [Forna] writes so well.... Her book deserves to go on the shelf next to Malan's [ My Traitor's Heart ]. It is excellent.

Aidan Hartley, The Literary Review

Remarkable... Extraordinary... In writing this book [Forna] has acted her part well. She has lifted out of herself the emotional and cultural world of her childhood and represented it in scenes of startling beauty and tragedy. Few books merit being called courageous; this one does.

Rachel Cusk, The Evening Standard

Gives a more personal framework for understanding the horror of the 1990s in the linked wars of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea... [Forna's] interviews with broken men are extremely moving, and tell everything of the world that vanished with her father.

Victoria Brittain, The Guardian

[A] moving, impressive account... [Forna's] harrowing description of her struggle in adulthood to establish the truth of [her father's] death makes enormously compelling and painful reading.

Alex Clark, Sunday Times (London)

[An] engaging memoir... It can also be read as a detective story.... The observations have an appropriate strangeness and wonder, and there are moments of humor.... An impressive contribution to the literature of post-colonial Africa.

Jason Cowley, Times (London)

THE DEVIL THAT
DANCED ON THE WATER

By the same author

Mother of All Myths

How Society Moulds and Constrains Mothers

The Devil That
Danced on the Water

A Daughter's Quest

AMINATTA FORNA

GROVE PRESS

New York

Copyright 2002 by Aminatta Forna

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011.

First published in Great Britain in 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers, Hammersmith, London, England

Author photograph and photograph of river scene Simon Westcott

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Forna, Aminatta.

The devil that danced on the water : a daughters quest / Aminatta Forna.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8021-4048-7

eISBN 978-0-8021-9195-3

1. Forna, AminattaChildhood and youth. 2. Forna, Mohamed. 3. Sierra LeonePolitics and government19614. Sierra LeoneBiography. I. Title.

CT2448.F67 A3 2003

966.404'092dc21

[B]2002028292

Grove Press