In the Company of Men
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE
Harper’s Bazaar: Best Book of the Year
Boston Globe: Best Book of the Year
Ms. Magazine: Best Feminist Book of the Year
Words Without Borders: Best Translated Book of the Year
Drawing on real accounts of the Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa, this poignant, timely fable reflects on both the strength and the fragility of life and humanity’s place in the world.
Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer’s potions nor the medical team’s treatments could cure. Compounding the family’s grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys’ father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival.
In a series of moving snapshots, Véronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic, through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent, protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed, helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree, mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future.
Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic, In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tadjo's resonant, unflinching latest (after Far from My Father) delves into the West African ebola crisis of the mid-2010s and how it played out in a region devastated by trauma and loss. As personal and humane as it is biblically grand, with references to Mary Magdalene's visits to Jesus's tomb, the novel follows a wide array of narrators, including a young woman sent away from her village to avoid the early ravages of the virus, a distressed NGO volunteer who is eager to help, teams of doctors attempting to contain the wider crisis while caring for individual patients, the infected fighting for their lives, and the bystanders hoping it will not happen to them. Over all of these voices looms another: that of the ancient baobab tree that has watched over people for generations and provides a vast sense of scale as it comments on the region's history of devastation. Tadjo humanizes the crisis, and the most resonant scenes bear witness to the virus as it spreads in "silence, a thick, threatening silence, auguring even more harrowing days to come." Brief and haunting, this makes for a timely testament to the destructive powers of pandemics.
