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Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa
by Alexis Okeowo
Book Reviewed by:In the tradition of Behind the Beautiful Forevers, this is a masterful, humane work of literary journalism by New Yorker staff writer Alexis Okeowo - a vivid narrative of Africans who are courageously resisting their continent's wave of fundamentalism.
In A Moonless, Starless Sky Okeowo weaves together four narratives that form a powerful tapestry of modern Africa: a young couple, kidnap victims of Joseph Kony's LRA; a Mauritanian waging a lonely campaign against modern-day slavery; a women's basketball team flourishing amid war-torn Somalia; and a vigilante who takes up arms against the extremist group Boko Haram. This debut book by one of America's most acclaimed young journalists illuminates the inner lives of ordinary people doing the extraordinary - lives that are too often hidden, underreported, or ignored by the rest of the world.
A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa is an ambitious and successful account of current affairs in Uganda, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Somalia, brimming with keen human-interest stories. Alexis Okeowo, who writes for The New Yorker, is a powerful storyteller with a journalist's instinct for detail and a humanitarian's dedication. She is fearless in pursuit of true and nuanced moments. Here, she profiles ordinary people rising to heroic actions while confronting danger in their communities. In particular, much of this book is a solid attempt to record the history and lives of those whose stories have never been told...continued
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(Reviewed by Karen Lewis).
In A Moonless, Starless Sky, author Alexis Okeowo profiles, among other heroes, anti-slavery crusader Biram Dah Abeid, who is a citizen of Mauritania.
This West African nation has a rich cultural history. Early settlements include Berber herders (an ethnic group indigeneous to Northern Africa) around the 3rd Century B.C., followed by waves of Arabic Moors, an ethnic group who created the Arab Andalusian civilization and introduced Islam to the region around the year 1000. Colonized by France in 1904, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania gained independence from France in 1960 and holds a seat at the United Nations. Since its independence, the government has experienced a series of coups d'états, but voters elected President Abdel ...
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Adam Hochschild, New York Times bestselling author of King Leopold's Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts
From an abolitionist who once owned a slave to women basketball players in a war zone, Alexis Okeowo has an alert and thoughtful eye for the unexpected. The portraits and voices she brings us from Africa are so vivid that the reader can easily forget the determination and bravery it must have taken to gather them in these unhappy corners of the continent.
