Freight Dogs

Description

'Every new novel by Giles Foden is something to celebrate' Paul Theroux 'An amazing and profound work, rich in memorable detail' Jay Parini 'Foden has cleverly reworked the grand African adventure novel' Aminatta Forna, Guardian 'A perceptive, compassionate history of an enormously complex conflict' Irish Times 'Sharp and fast-paced. Foden does a fine job of locating the reader in the maelstrom of this brutal period in Congo's past, taking us deep into the heart of a complex conflict' Observer 1996: in a Ugandan dive bar, the 'freight dogs' gather. An anarchic group of mercenary pilots from Texas, Russia, Kenya and Belgium who transport weapons between warring African nations, without allegiance. And tonight they have a new recruit - Manu, a nineteen-year-old cowherd fleeing Congo's bloody war. Taken in by this band of unlikely brothers, Manu hopes to reinvent himself. But no matter how fast he flies, trouble always seems to follow closely behind...

Giles Foden was born in 1967 and spent much of his early life in Africa. He was educated at Cambridge University. He has worked as a barman, a builder, a journalist, an academic, and as a rapporteur for the European Commission. For ten years, he was an editor and writer on the Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian, and his writing has since been published in Granta, Vogue, Esquire, The New York Times and Conde Nast Traveller, where he is a contributing editor. His fiction includes The Last King of Scotland, Ladysmith, Zanzibar and Turbulence. The Last King of Scotland was made into an Oscar-winning feature film in 2006.

An amazing and profound work, rich in memorable detail. * Jay Parini * Every new novel by Giles Foden is something to celebrate - my hand leaps to the shelf. * Paul Theroux * Audacious, shrewd and spirited * William Boyd on THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND * Freight Dogs is an ambitious and intricate novel. Foden's understanding of the nature of war, and of this war in particular, is exemplary... Freight Dogs is also a fast-paced adventure yarn featuring battles, exploding volcanoes, buried secrets, a deathbed revelation, daredevil flying and an elusive love interest. In this Foden has cleverly reworked the grand African adventure novel epitomised by Rider Haggard and Wilbur Smith, or later, John le Carre's The Constant Gardener or Michael Crichton's Congo... This book is a testament to all those civilians, in Congo, Afghanistan, Syria, Colombia and elsewhere, whose lives have not so much been touched by violence as tossed round like flotsam on the waves of history and conflict. -- Aminatta Forna * GUARDIAN * A perceptive, compassionate history of an enormously complex conflict... compelling, vivid and surprising. -- Kevin Power * IRISH TIMES * Sharp and fast-paced... Foden does a fine job of locating the reader in the maelstrom of this brutal period in Congo's past... he takes us deep into the heart of a complex conflict, showing how even the innocent can get caught up in acts of horrifying violence. -- Alex Preston * OBSERVER * Underpinning and directing everything are ever-restless time and history, the biggest characters of all. At one point Manu "senses the rub of history, of past events [. . .] jointly seeking form, seeking a stable meaning". That's a pretty good description of what a novelist seeks too, and in Freight Dogs Foden makes a damned good job of it. -- John Self * THE TIMES * Full-throttle adventure -- Anthony Cummins * THE MAIL ON SUNDAY * Foden is a brilliant voice and African observer. * SPECTATOR *