New to the book
Questions before you start
Short answers for someone who has not read the novel yet.
Is it a book about aid?
It is about what two villages are asked to accept. Adam Sterling, who brings the money, says he is there to help build something that can sustain itself. Dr Arramata has spent eleven years measuring the water of the floodplain, and she wants a village that can pay its own way.
Is it sad?
There are hard moments, and there is also an argument over a goat in the okra.
Do I need to know West Africa?
No. A glossary and a guide to saying the names are at the back of the book, and on the People and words page. Awdagha and Tekuru, the two republics of the story, are named in the notes at the back.
Is it funny?
In places, and mostly in what people say. There is Samba’s ruling on the goat. There is Fatou telling Kadiatou that her answer is a yes with its sandals still on. Some moments from the book are set out on one page.
How long is it, and how is it built?
252 pages in paperback: 28 chapters and a Coda, in two parts. Part One is set in Madina. Part Two moves ten years on to Nafawol, six hundred kilometres to the south.
Will the site spoil it for me?
Only if you ask it to. Most pages ask how far you have read and keep everything beyond that folded away. The downloads cannot do this, so each one says on its first page if it gives away the whole novel.
Where should I start?
With the opening. It takes about four minutes, and a second extract, from chapter 10, takes about three.
