Stringer

A Congolese legend has that God, tired after creating the world, stopped at this part of the earth and dropped all his sacks of riches.

Written with startling beauty and acuity, Stringer is an account of the year and a half that Anjan Sundaram spent in the Congo working on the bottom rung of the Associated Press. It was an intense period that would take him deep into the shadowy city of Kinshasa, to the dense rainforests that still evoke Conrad's vision, and to the heart of Africa's great war, culminating in the historic and violent multiparty elections of 2006. Along the way he would go on a joyride with Kinshasa's feral children, fend off women desperate for an escape route, and travel with an Indian businessman hunting for his fortune.

A breathtaking work of reportage that is both a gripping journey through a troubled country and an astonishing story of self-discovery.