All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo - Softcover

Mealer, Bryan

3.98

268 ratings by Goodreads

9781596916265: All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1596916265 ISBN 13: 9781596916265

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2009

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"With the maturity and talent he displays in this book, Mealer...has already set a new standard by which all correspondents might approach other forgotten wars."―Time

In 1996, the fighting in Rwanda spilled over the Congolese border, sparking a conflict that would eventually claim more lives than any other since the Second World War. Based on Mealer's three years in Congo, All Things Must Fight to Live is an unforgettable tour through the aftermath of war and colonialism, in a country that is still the site of the greatest humanitarian catastrophe on earth. It is nonfiction at its finest: harrowing, gorgeous, and in the end redemptive.

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About the Author:

Bryan Mealer was the Associated Press staff correspondent in Kinshasa, Congo, and has reported from places across the African continent, including Nairobi, S omalia, and Togo. His writing has appeared in Harper's and Esquire, among other magazines. He was born in Odessa, Texas, and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Brooklyn.

From Publishers Weekly:

In 1996 the brutal civil war in Rwanda spilled into neighboring Congo, triggering a conflict that has seethed for 12 long years, claimed more lives than any since WWII and received little acknowledgment or aid from the international community. AP correspondent Mealer spent three years in this shattered land, and his book is a perceptive, empathetic, stomach-twisting presentation of the human condition during chaos. Mealer depicts war and peace as the mighty arms of a hurricane; war hurtles thousands of terrified people into the bush; intermittent peace lures the lost ones home. Individuals and institutions, indigenous and Western alike, are overwhelmed by the confluence of political collapse, economic disintegration, international indifference and a generalized military ineffectiveness that prevents resolution of the conflict on any terms. The vivid vignettes of combat and its aftermath portend a forever war, and the author highlights the impotence of grassroots solutions that render any deliverance ephemeral at best. Mealer's book is a quiet paean to the courage he has witnessed, and its final salute to the many proud people of Congo is as much eulogy as affirmation. (May)
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