Masai Dreaming

Description

'A provocative novel about a disillusioned writer who travels to Africa to research a screenplay. Cartwright tellingly contrasts the supposed savagery of the dark continent with the very real barbarism of Nazi Germany and the modern world' Esquire 'Ambitious ... the book works well, as a story, as a compendium of reflections on race and nationhood and as a novel with a refined and distinctive narrative voice and one marvellously complete character, the old White Kenyan, Tom Fairfax ... an elegantly complex, unfailingly intelligent novel' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, The Spectator

Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa and educated in America and at Oxford University. His books include LOOK AT IT THIS WAY, INTERIOR, and IN EVERY FACE I MEET, which was shortlisted for the 1995 Booker Prize. His latest novel LEADING THE CHEERS won the Whitbread Novel Award for 1998

There is nothing tired or derivative here; the writing is sharp, the characters vividly drawn, the narrative sinuous . . . it confirms Cartwright's individuality and promise . . . In its bold design, as well as its wonderfully detailed portrait of African village life, it achieves real distinction * Sunday Telegraph * Cartwright makes his pages as vividly sensuous as they are caustically intelligent * The Sunday Times * It is like a little death to put this book down * Times Literary Supplement * The book works well, as a story, as a compendium of reflections on race and nationhood and as a novel with a refined and distinctive narrative voice . . . an elegantly complex, unfailingly intelligent novel * Spectator * Remarkable . . . The prose is spare and exact, yet glorious * Daily Mail * There is so much to take in along the way, so many essential truths, so much pain and beauty, that Masai Dreaming takes on the compulsive quality of a dream from which one is reluctant to awake. If I were ever asked to select a few books that might help to change the world, Cartwright's would be near the top of the list * Midweek * A provocative novel * Esquire *