EMMA'S WAR

In controlled tones Kate Reading delivers the author’s fury as she illuminates the past 14 years of the Sudan's tribal warfare, starvation, and political intrusion/assistance by foreign governments and aid agencies. The story is told through the short life of Emma McClune, a British volunteer from an ex-colonial family, whose immersion in Sudanese culture evolved from doling out pencils to marrying a guerrilla warlord. The upper-class British accents of Emma's friends and colleagues contrast with the often condemning tones of the American reporter. Reading's presentation of Scroggins's perspective gives more insights into the career aid workers than the native population, who are most often horrific statistics, dispassionately conveyed. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 08]