THE DEVIL THAT DANCED ON THE WATER.: A Daughter's Memoir.

Harper Collins. London 2002. uncorrected proof copy.. No inscription. an unread VG+ copy.. 403pp. large format paperback. An autobiographical account of the author's early life when she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, danger, flight, the bitterness of exile and the terrible consequences of her dissident father's stand against tyranny. The daughter of a Sierra Leonian medical student and a white Scottish woman she saw bricks thrown throught the windows of there home, her mother spat at on the street, and her grandfather disowning her. Her parents then moved to Sierra Leone, setting up a clinic. Life became a nightmare ending when her father Dr Mohamed Forna was hanged for high treason. Now a journalist and television reporter, her search for the truth that shaped her childhood and an investigation into the execution of her father uncovers a conspiracy that went right to the top and forces a nation's political and judicial systems to confront their guilt. Shortlisted for the 2003 Samuel Johnson Prize it received excellent reviews from many sources. Christopher Hope, writing in The Independent, stated: "Forna has written a book that is impossible to forget, or to confuse with any other memoir of tyrannical times." and found it "an obsessive, driven, refreshing book about Africa, despotism and exile."