Mercy
-
- 9,99 €
-
- 9,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
Mercy is een prachtige roman over twee heel verschillende vrouwen. Het is tevens het verhaal van het hedendaagse Afrika - van koffieplantages en witte stranden, en van burgeroorlogen en aids.
De sprankelende Mercy is een forse Afrikaanse vrouw met een grote mond en een gouden hart. Ze werkt als huishoudster bij Anna, een buitenlandse correspondente die te veel drinkt en te weinig doel heeft in haar leven.
Mercy is een schitterend verhaal over deze twee tegendraadse vrouwen die met elkaar botsen, maar elkaar ook nodig hebben. '
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anna, the Italian-born, Nairobi-based war correspondent and narrator of veteran journalist Santoro's affecting debut novel, is fast succumbing to "the pain and riot" of "burned, bloodied Africa." Excessively drinking, keeping two lovers one, a fellow journalist; the other, the owner of a coffee plantation and delaying assignments while pleading with her editor for a bureau transfer, she seems hell-bent on self-annihilation when Mercy, a local "giantess miraculously squeezed into a pink halter-top and fake patent-leather pants," persuades Anna to give her a job as house girl. Mercy becomes indispensable to Anna, pushing her to give up alcohol and meet her deadlines and introducing Anna to Father Anselmo, an Italian priest who lives in and administers to the AIDS-wracked slum of Korogocho. But it is only after Anna learns that Mercy has AIDS that the full measure of the women's connection to and effect upon each other comes full circle. Santoro, who has covered the African AIDS epidemic, evokes the continent's everyday horrors and uncommon moments of grace in decidedly unsentimental prose, and her depiction of international journalists' lifestyles is similarly powerful. Though the subtleties that make the first half of the book sublime become heavy-handed later on, the characters and their complicated relationships remain stirring until the end.
