| The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest | |
| Author: | Aminatta Forna |
| Country: | Scotland |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | Memoir, Sierra Leone history |
| Published: | 2002 (HarperCollins) |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback) |
| Pages: | 223 |
| Isbn: | 9780802140487 |
| Oclc: | 829656576 |
The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest is a 2002 book by Aminatta Forna about her childhood and an investigation into the execution of her father, Mohamed Forna. It was serialised as a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 and was runner-up for the 2003 Samuel Johnson Prize.
Reviewing The Devil That Danced on the Water for The Guardian, Victoria Brittain wrote: "Aminatta Forna's story of her father's execution on trumped-up treason charges, 25 years before anyone had heard of the Revolutionary United Front, gives a more personal framework for understanding the horror of the 1990s in the linked wars of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea."[1]
Booklist called it "stunning" and "an important look at the sad state of politics in Sierra Leone", and the Library Journal saw it as "More than a tale of vindication, this book is filled with powerful descriptions and moving details and if overly long is nevertheless an important work."[2]
Christopher Hope, writing in The Independent, stated: "Forna has written a book that is impossible to forget, or to confuse with any other memoir of tyrannical times." and found it "an obsessive, driven, refreshing book about Africa, despotism and exile."[3]
The Devil That Danced on the Water has also been reviewed by Publishers Weekly,[4] Kirkus Reviews,[5] People,[6] Metro,[7] The New Yorker,[8] Confrontation,[9] and Entertainment Weekly.[10]
The Devil That Danced on the Water was on the shortlist for the 2003 Samuel Johnson Prize.[11] It was also Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 and was serialised in the Sunday Times.[12] [13]
Comparisons have been drawn between this work and (2012) by Noo-Saro-Wiwa.[14]