Heart of Darfur by Lisa Blaker
Lisa arrives in Sudan full of determination to use her skills as a nurse to do something to ease the plight of the hundreds of thousands of people caught up in the civil war raging through Darfur. She is working with Medecins Sans Frontieres, the international organisation that sends health workers to the most desperate places in the world. The six months she spends on the mission will be the toughest of her life but will teach her some fundamental truths about what people are capable of, both good and bad, and about herself. Lisa describes treating children with machete wounds, babies dying of chronic dehydration, girls giving birth at the age of 13 and old women too traumatised to carry on living. Her relationships with her Sudanese colleagues are treasured and described in fascinating detail. The book is exquisitely written, without sentiment but with a powerful and moving determination to show the suffering of the people of Darfur and to bear witness to their remarkable courage in the face of the most appalling situation. This is the book to help us all understand the human story behind the newspaper headlines.
'Every chapter evokes sharp memories of the very brief time my son George and I spent in the regionThe reader gets many revealing personal anecdotes, but also comes away with a sense of the complexities, frustrations and, ultimately, the unquenchable hopes of those struggling to end the ongoing genocide.' -- Nick Clooney, Cincinnati Post It takes a brave woman to leave her family and friends and travel to one of the poorest and most war-ravaged parts of the world to work as a nurse. It takes an even braver one to rty and write a compassionate book about waht she saw... by the end you have nothing but respect fro teh nurse who saved so many people and made so many lives that little bit better. It is easy to save a life in Darfur. says French Blaker. You just need to pluck up courage to go up there. -- London Lite 20080226 Intensely moving and heart-breakingly honest... she describes her experiences in simple, heart-breaking prose. Inspring, essential reading. -- Sainsburys Magazine 20080201 It's harrowing stuff, but a tribute to the inextinguishable spirit of the suffering people of Darfur. **** -- Daily Mail - Weekend 20080207 Her account of her time in Darfur is honest, and that means that it is brutal, painful and shocking. She did not shy away from her patients - and we should not shy away from this heart-breaking broadcast. -- Radio Times - on Radio 4 Book of the Week broadcast 20080204 Darfur flutters on the edge of the west's conscience - hopelessly complex, and comfortably distant. Indifference has somehow become a default reaction for so many of us. But not New Zealand nurse, Lisa French Blaker, who journeyed into the darkest, most desperate reaches of human life when she spent nine months working for Medecins San Frontieres in Darfur. Heart of Darfur, her memoir of the period, humanises the conflict, translating the region's morass of problems into an emotionally charged and fulfilling story. The predicament of the MSF workers is engrossing. There's a minute-by-minute political tightrope to tread; and with pitifully few resources, the achievement of saving one human life is often eclipsed by the inability to save others. -- Financial Times 20080308
Lisa French Blaker is from New Zealand and has worked as a nurse all over the world.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780340952290 |
| ISBN 10 | 0340952296 |
| Title | Heart of Darfur |
| Author | Lisa Blaker |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Year published | 2008-02-21 |
| Number of pages | 352 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |