The Wizard Of The Nile | Granta

  • Published: 01/01/2009
  • ISBN: 9781846270314
  • 129x20mm
  • 352 pages

The Wizard Of The Nile

Matthew Green

Somewhere in the jungles of Uganda, there hides a fugitive rebel leader: he is said to take his orders directly from the spirit world and, together with his ragged army of brutalized child soldiers, he has left a bloody trail of devastation across his country. Joseph Kony is now an internationally wanted criminal, and yet nobody really knows who he is or what he is fighting for. Intrigued by the myths, Matthew Green heads off into a war zone, meeting the victims, the peacemakers and the regional powerbrokers as he tracks down the man himself. The Wizard of the Nile is the first book to peel back the layers of mysticism and murky politics surrounding Kony, to shine a searching light onto this forgotten conflict, and to tell the gripping human story behind an inhumane war and a humanitarian crisis.

Takes us closer to understanding the inhumane horror of one madman's war

Bob Geldof

A penetrating insight into the heart of one of the worst conflicts in the world

Jon Snow

Green leads the reader into another world - of myth and magic, faith and superstition - as he tries to understand his quarry ... a remarkable tale, vividly told

Michael Holman

The Author

MATTHEW GREEN has spent the past 14 years working as a correspondent for the Financial Times and Reuters and has reported from more than 30 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. After studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University, he began his career with Reuters, working in east and west Africa and in Iraq, where he was embedded with US Marines during the invasion in 2003. He later joined the Financial Times, working in Nigeria and then Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he spent time with US forces deployed to Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the Obama administration’s troop surge. Green is now based in London and appears regularly as a commentator on the BBC News Channel and World Service radio, and writes for publications including Monocle magazine and the Literary Review. His first book was The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Joseph Kony, which won a Jerwood Award from the Royal Society of Literature and was long-listed for the Orwell Prize. www.matthewgreenjournalism.com

More about the author →

From the Same Author

Aftershock

Matthew Green

Over the last decade, we have sent thousands of people to fight on our behalf. But what happens when these soldiers come back home, having lost their friends and killed their enemies, having seen and done things that have no place in civilian life? In Aftershock, Matthew Green tells the story of our veterans’ journey from the frontline of combat to the reality of return.

Through wide-ranging interviews with former combatants — including a Royal Marine sniper and a former operator in the SAS – as well as serving personnel and their families, physicians, therapists, and psychiatrists, Aftershock looks beyond the headline-grabbing statistics and the labels of post-traumatic stress disorder to get to the heart of today’s post-conflict experience. Green asks what lessons have been learned from past wars, and explores the range of help currently available, from traditional talking cures to cutting-edge scientific therapies. As today’s battle-scarred troops begin to lay their weapons down, Aftershock is a hard-hitting account of the hidden cost of conflict. And its message is one that has profound implications, not just for the military, but for anyone with an interest in how we experience trauma and survive.

Matthew Green on Granta.com

In Conversation | The Online Edition

Matthew Green and Bryan Doerries

Matthew Green & Bryan Doerries

Matthew Green and Bryan Doerries discuss Greek tragedy, post-traumatic stress disorder and the cathartic power of drama.