The Devil That Danced on the Water

An intimate and moving portrait of a family combined with an account of the events which swept through Africa in the post-independence period.

Aminatta Forna’s intensely personal history is a passionate and vivid account of an African childhood – of an idyll that became a nightmare. As a child she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, the bitterness of exile in Britain and the terrible consequences of her dissident father’s stand against tyranny.

Mohamed Forna, a man of unimpeachable integrity and great charisma, was a new star in the political firmament Sierra Leone as the country faced its future as a fledgling democracy. Always a political firebrand, he was one of the first black students to come to Britain after the war. In Aberdeen he stole the heart of Aminatta's mother, to the dismay of her Presbyterian parents, and returned with her to Sierra Leone. But the new ways of Western parliamentary democracy were tearing old Africa apart, giving rise only to dictatorships and corruption of hitherto undreamed-of magnitude. It was not long before Aminatta’s father languished in jail as a prisoner of conscience, and there was worse to come.

Aminatta’s search for the truth that shaped both her childhood and the nation’s destiny begins among the country's elite and takes her into the heart of rebel territory. Determined to break the silence surrounding her father’s fate, she ultimately uncovered a conspiracy that penetrated the highest reaches of government and forced the nation's politicians and judiciary to confront their guilt.

Reviews

‘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

‘An extraordinary and gripping story…Aminatta Forna’s book glows with compassion. A modern classic, of which her courageous father would have been proud.’ Peter Gowin, 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’

‘I had tears in my eyes almost the whole way through, although it is the least sentimental of books…Aminatta Forna manages, quite brilliantly, to evoke not only all the honour and pity that is in her family’s story, but its beauty and tenderness too.’ Katie Hickman, author of ‘Daughters of Britannia’