Riveting Historical Fiction
The interactions of the characters in this book are so interesting that it is easy to overlook the fact that GHOST SEASON is important historical fiction. The setting of Sudan is extremely ancient, and yet many people around the world are unfamiliar with its history – that South Sudan only became a separate country in 2011. Like so much of the African continent, the original people of Sudan were colonized and inequalities became entrenched. This history permeates the plot, and knowing a little about the turbulence of this area will help a reader to understand the fear when a burned corpse is discovered and the compound's female cook did not show up for work.
I immediately felt transported by this debut. In fact, the perfect adjective for GHOST SEASON is immersive since I felt like the swirling dust of this remote Sudanese border town was in my nose as I sensed the tension among filmmaker Dena and American map-making aid worker Alex. The relentless heat, made worse by climate change, seemed to contribute to the intensifying worries and rumors about the civil war. The wall around the NGO compound is clearly no match for any advancing soldiers, but the young interpreter, Mustafa, is more. wrapped up in his dreams of making a better life for himself and escaping extreme poverty.
For anyone who was interested and horrified by the events in the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda, GHOST SEASON is a book for you.
I have been in a foreign country where the interpreter to make up for my limited ability to speak a local dialect was a twelve-year-old boy like Mustafa, and I have seen many cemeteries rigidly divided by religion. So perhaps this book appealed to me a little more than the average reader, but I urge anyone who is curious about the world to read this when it publishes in early January 2023.
(11/23/22)
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