From Publishers Weekly
Forna saw her father for the last time on July 30, 1974; she was 10 years old. In this harrowing memoir-cum-detective story, journalist Forna searches for the truth about her father's execution in Sierra Leone after his treason conviction for allegedly attempting a coup upon the government in which he had once been a cabinet minister. Mohamed Forna, a British-educated doctor and activist in what was, in the 1960s, a fledgling democracy extricating itself from British colonialist rule, resigned from what had become a dictatorship rife with corruption and chaos. The consequences of that resignation culminated in eight executions and precipitated the descent into anarchy of Africa's poorest nation. Forna writes with a compelling mix of distance and anguish, intent on explaining her father's death and reclaiming his memory. Lush descriptions of her idyllic childhood provide eerie counterpoint to chilling depictions of the hell Sierra Leone had become upon her return in recent years, a place where bands of child warriors, hacking off limbs as both punishment and warning, have created a mutilated populace. The poverty her father tried to fight remains the only constant in the war-torn land. A harsh critic of her father's executioners, Forna nevertheless equivocates on the dictatorships that have wreaked havoc throughout Africa, querying her own identity as a diaspora mixed-race Afro-European. Reminiscent of Isabelle Allende's House of the Spirits, Forna's work is a powerfully and elegantly written mix of complex history, riveting memoir and damning expos‚Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Forna's father, Mohamed, was a leading politician in newly liberated Sierra Leone but landed in jail as a prisoner of conscience when democracy turned to dictatorship. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Forna was only a child when her father, Mohamed, was taken by the police to a Sierra Leone jail for his supposed involvement in an assassination conspiracy. Mohamed, a brilliant and kind physician, met his wife, Maureen, when he studied in Scotland. They married against the wishes of her family, and after Mohamed's older brother died, he brought his wife and their three children to a small town in Sierra Leone. Mohamed was the only doctor in the town, but soon he found another calling: politics. He joined the All People's Congress party, hoping to break Sierra Leone's People's Party's stronghold on parliamentary positions. Despite military intervention, the APC took the many seats they won, and Mohamed became the minister of finance. But Mohamed's political troubles were not at an end, as he saw his party become as corrupt as SLPP had been. He was eventually arrested and executed for treason. Forna's stunning memoir is both a tribute to her brave father and an important look at the sad state of politics in Sierra Leone. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Aminatta Forna's memoir is a beautifully wrought, deeply personal portrait of the tragic events that derailed Sierra Leone's nascent democracy movement in the 1970s. Ms. Forna's British-educated father, a physician and onetime government minister in Sierra Leone, struggled with his colleagues to bring freedom to the long-suffering, oft-exploited people of this desperately poor nation, only to face ultimate betrayal. In emerging African governments, as elsewhere, power is known to corrupt. Sierra Leone was no exception, but Dr. Forna was. For this reason, the praetorian government of Siaka Stevens tried him and 13 others on charges that would have been utterly laughable had the results been less appalling: They were all summarily executed.

As a child, Aminatta asked her father to sign her autograph book. He chose a quote from Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man": "Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part: there all the honour lies." Unknowingly, Dr. Forna passed on to his young daughter the words by which he chose to live and die.

By turns gorgeous and painful, blissful and disquieting, The Devil That Danced on the Water evokes the blessed ignorance of childhood even as it narrates the hideous fallout of wholesale slaughter. Forna tells her story with poignancy and no hint of self-pity. Clear-eyed and objective, she expresses a sense of personal liberation that readers will also feel when one -- and only one -- of those who gave false testimony against her father in exchange for money or a job finally apologizes. Dr. Forma's daughter has written a radiant and extremely accomplished tribute. Winter 2002 Selection

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Aminatta Forna's intensely personal history is a passionate and vivid account of an African childhood, an idyll that became the stuff of nightmare. As a child she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, danger, flight, the bitterness of exile in Britain, and the terrible consequences of her dissident father's stand against tyranny." "Mohamed Forna was a man of unimpeachable integrity and great charisma. As Sierra Leone faced its future as a fledgling democracy, he was a new star in the political firmament, a man who had been one of the first black students to come to Britain after the war. Already a political firebrand and a stylish dresser, he stole the heart of Aminatta's mother, to the dismay of her Presbyterian parents, and returned with her to Sierra Leone. But as Aminatta Forna shows with compelling clarity, the old Africa was torn apart by the new ways of Western parliamentary democracy, which gave birth only to dictatorships and corruption of hitherto undreamed-of magnitude. It was not long before Mohamed Forna languished in jail as a prisoner of conscience, and worse was to follow." Aminatta's search for the truth that shaped both her childhood and the nation's destiny began among the country's elite and took 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 to confront their guilt.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New Yorker

In 1975, Mohamed Forna, a doctor and leading Sierra Leonean dissident, was executed for treason. A quarter century later, his daughter, who was ten when he was arrested, began to investigate his death. Her lucid, exacting memoir recounts indelible scenes: in bed with malaria, she watches a soldier ransack her room; when her stepmother goes to plead for her father's life, Aminatta asks her to get the President's autograph. She interviews the men who gave false testimony against her father, and discerns in their matter-of-fact responses a "lack of expectation" that defines life in Sierra Leone after decades of violence. In a telling episode, her stepmother takes pity on one of these witnesses, who is now destitute, and hires him as a cook. The author wonders if it is in this way, "together under the same roof," that she and her countrymen must learn to live with the past.

Publishers Weekly

Forna saw her father for the last time on July 30, 1974; she was 10 years old. In this harrowing memoir-cum-detective story, journalist Forna searches for the truth about her father's execution in Sierra Leone after his treason conviction for allegedly attempting a coup upon the government in which he had once been a cabinet minister. Mohamed Forna, a British-educated doctor and activist in what was, in the 1960s, a fledgling democracy extricating itself from British colonialist rule, resigned from what had become a dictatorship rife with corruption and chaos. The consequences of that resignation culminated in eight executions and precipitated the descent into anarchy of Africa's poorest nation. Forna writes with a compelling mix of distance and anguish, intent on explaining her father's death and reclaiming his memory. Lush descriptions of her idyllic childhood provide eerie counterpoint to chilling depictions of the hell Sierra Leone had become upon her return in recent years, a place where bands of child warriors, hacking off limbs as both punishment and warning, have created a mutilated populace. The poverty her father tried to fight remains the only constant in the war-torn land. A harsh critic of her father's executioners, Forna nevertheless equivocates on the dictatorships that have wreaked havoc throughout Africa, querying her own identity as a diaspora mixed-race Afro-European. Reminiscent of Isabelle Allende's House of the Spirits, Forna's work is a powerfully and elegantly written mix of complex history, riveting memoir and damning expos . Agent, David Godwin. (Jan.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Forna, a writer and broadcaster who lives in London, has written this memoir as an act of catharsis and discovery. The daughter of a white British mother and a black African father from Sierra Leone, Forna focuses on her attempts to discover why her father, Mohamed, who became a prisoner of conscience, was executed for treason while she was a teenager going to school in England. Her journey is both mental and physical. She reexamines her childhood memories in painful detail and describes her later trips to Sierra Leone as an investigative reporter with a personal mission. After extensive interviews with some of her father's accusers, she shows conclusively that he was framed by his political enemies, who were led by the president of the country. More than a tale of vindication, this book is filled with powerful descriptions and moving details and if overly long is nevertheless an important work. Highly recommended for most libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 19/15/02.]-A.O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews