The Water Thief

(Hardback, Hardback)

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Description

Who decides what is right How dowe judge ouractions And how do welive with ourselves when things go wrong Following his father's death, troubledidealist Nick abandons his safeLondon life for a remotedesertvillage in Africa, lending hisengineering skills to build achildrens hospital. Adrift from the world he knows, dangerouscurrents soon pull him in: a simmeringfamily conflict, hiddencorruption and violence, a killing drought, attraction tohis host'slonelywife.But when he realizes a water well could offer a way out for the villageand redeemhis guilty conscience, hetakes matters into his own hands. Its a decision that changes everything forhim, and for everyone he loves.

Reviews

'It is a potent reminder of the fragility of solutions developed without context.'

* Booklist Online *

Hajaj offers ahopeful vision of how people from different worlds can find common ground.

* Jewish Chronicle *

Claire Hajaj follows her Middle Eastern-set debut,Ishmaels Oranges, with the engrossing story of Nick, an architect who, after the sudden death of his father, leaves his fiance in London to help build a childrens hospital in an unspecified village in the Saharainspired by the dilemmas she faced as an aid worker for the UNit engages as a parable of a Westerner who, trying to do the right thing, finds that perhaps there is no right thing to be done.

* Daily Mail *

Claire Hajaj writes with compassion and insight and her characters are rounded and believable...The Water Thief amply fulfils the promise of her debut novel and confirms that here is a writer who can invoke passion and intellect with equal and satisfying facility.

* New Internationalist *

I finishedThe Water Thief with tears in my eyes. Its the story of so manyWesterners who find meaning and purpose working in developing countries; who fall in love with a place and its people; who try so hard to make things better; and whose efforts can have tragic, unintended consequences.

* Emma Sky, author of The Unravelling *

A deceptively simple story that addresses many of the problems facing western African nationsdrought, corruption, politics, questionable charitable interventionsand wraps it all in a very human story of love and loss.

* Bookbag *

An unpredictable and compelling work that will generate many conversations.

* Library Journal *

This book completely tore my heart open and made me take a hard look at my own life...The characters in this book will long live in my heart and memory. This has to be one of the most thought-provoking, soul searching books Ive ever read...exquisitely written, intense and profound.

* Marjories World of Books *

Claire Hajaj [tells her story] with intensity and a deep sensitivity towards people, and all their strengths and shortcomings.

* Katharina Wantoch, Emotion magazine *

A profound Africa adventure.

* MYWAY *

The Water Thief by Claire Hajaj improves the world.

* Obersterreichische Nachrichten *

Author Bio

Claire Hajaj has spent the past fifteen years working in international aid and conflict resolution for the United Nations, across war zones from Burma to Baghdad. She shares Palestinian and Jewish heritage, growing up between the deserts of the Middle East and the gardens of rural England. Claires writing has also appeared inNewsweek, The Sunday Times, New Statesman, The Telegraph, London Literary Review,as well as political institutions dedicated to peace. She has an MA in Classical and English Literature from Oxford University, and is a fellow of the UN Centre for Policy Research. She currently lives inTajikistan.