The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted »

The civil war in Uganda has lasted over two decades, spilling over into Sudan and Congo but drawing only occasional interest from the West. The insurgency in the north is led by "the wizard of the Nile," Joseph Kony, whose Lord's Resistance Army is infamous both for its wish to rule Uganda according to the Ten Commandments and its history of atrocities.

Matthew Green journeys up the White Nile to find the notoriously elusive Kony and try to answer an impossible question: How could one man leading an army of abducted children hold a country hostage for twenty years? In The Wizard of the Nile, we travel to the villages and camps ravaged by Kony's soldiers, and then meet the soldiers themselves, many of them forced into Kony's army as children. We encounter refugees, aid workers, and journalists, as well as the political leaders who have their own reasons for preferring war to peace. Green's urgent, perceptive book is an invaluable guide to a conflict too little understood and too long ignored.

About the Author:
Matthew Green spent four years in East Africa as a reporter for Reuters. He is now the West Africa correspondent for the Financial Times

Rachel Bridgewater - Library Journal

In this gripping book, Green (West Africa correspondent, Financial Times) describes his quest to locate and interview Joseph Kony, the elusive leader of the northern Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). After years of filing stories about the LRA out of the Reuters Nairobi office, Green wanted to know how "one maniac could hold half a country hostage for twenty years." Though Kony's LRA has indeed been brutalizing northern Uganda for decades, the struggle has rarely received much attention from the West. Green's lucid, illuminating book describes the West's interest in believing in a stable post-Amin Uganda in a part of the world plunged into chaos by conflicts in neighboring Sudan, Congo, and Rwanda. With its brisk pacing emanating from the central narrative of Green's journey up and down the Nile, the work manages to be a page-turner while exploring the political history of the country. In the end, Green's story provides a thoughtful and evenhanded exploration of a conflict that is all too often sensationalized, misunderstood, or ignored. While its long-form reportorial style, without endnotes or an index, may not make it a choice for all academic libraries, they should still consider it. It is highly recommended for all public libraries.

Maps

List of illustrations

Prologue: A Funeral 1

1 A Prophet from God 7

2 We are the Angels 29

3 Daughter of the Moon 53

4 Feeding the Prisoners 81

5 A Thug with a Cross 111

6 'God is a Killer' 125

7 'Shock the World' 153

8 The Most Desolate Spot on Earth 177

9 Mr. Dusty 197

10 The Second Coming 219

11 'We Want to See your Chairman' 239

12 A Girl Called Peace 267

13 A Strange Kind of Wizard 285

14 'I am Reformed' 309

Epilogue 321

Select Bibliography 325