Thirty Girls

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A literary tour de force set in war-torn Africa. from the best-selling, award-winning author of Evening.
Esther is a Ugandan teenager abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to witness and commit unspeakable atrocities, who is struggling to survive, to escape, and to find a way to live with what she has seen and done. Jane is an American journalist who has travelled to Africa, hoping to give a voice to children like Esther and to find her centre after a series of failed relationships. In unflinching prose, Minot interweaves their stories, giving us razor-sharp portraits of two extraordinary young women confronting displacement, heartbreak, and the struggle to wrest meaning from events that test them both in unimaginable ways.

With mesmerising emotional intensity and stunning evocations of Africa's beauty and its horror, Minot gives us her most brilliant and ambitious novel yet.

Reviews

Thirty Girls is based on one of the strangest and best-known episodes from that bloody period in Ugandan history What is unnerving about Thirty Girls is how easily Minots style fits this much more extreme and disturbing subject matter. The stark tone and structure of short, vivid scenes seem more appropriate to the tale of traumatised schoolgirls than they do to the ordinary miseries of rejection or miscommunication Minot pulls off the account of things that might seem so horrific as to be unspeakable Lidija Haas, Sunday Times

A heart-rending novel based on horrific real-life event. A punch in the gut over and over again Chris Pavone, Metro

Admirable Thirty Girls is a malignant picture of a country that gnaws away at its own children, and of the impotence of those who watch from the sidelines India Ross, Financial Times

Minots gripping novel weaves together the stories of a Ugandan teen abducted by the Lords Resistance Army and an American journalist covering the war Metro

Wrenching Suspenseful By far her best New York Times

A novel of quiet humanity and probing intelligence Minot is particularly good on the topology of desire But its the story of what happened to those 30 abducted girls that shows Minots gifts as a writer Minot takes huge questions and examines them with both a delicate touch and a cleareyed, unyielding scrutiny New York Times Book Review

Exceptional Represents a broadening vision for Minot She has earned a trademark on the subject of desire Elle

Author Bio

Susan Minot is the author of Evening Monkeys, Lust and Other Stories and Rapture. She lives in New York City and Maine.