Description
Book SynopsisFirst time in paperback.
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection, a Fall 2015 Indies Introduce title, and Library Journal Fall Best Debut
A lyrical and brutally honest debut novel of modern Africa that evokes J. M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K and Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love.
Focuses on contemporary issues in Africa, like refugees and the dispossessed and the balance between humans and the wilderness.
Stories about Africa are popular now, and this is by an American who has been in Tanzania for 20 years.Trade ReviewA New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection "I like
Kid Moses very much! The prose is wonderfully quiet and controlled . . . very good writing indeed." Peter Matthiessen
“Thornton keeps an even tone with the kind of spare, austere language that reflects Moses’s stoic attitude and prevents the book from turning maudlin or crusading. . . . [
Kid Moses] is a little boy with big contradictions, well worth following on his safari.”
The New York Times Book Review "With the excitement of the archetypal perilous adventure, Thornton's stark, beautiful prose will hold readers in this story of a young boy's struggle to survive in Tanzania today. . . . It's the crisply evoked small moments in this tale of a homeless kid on the run that give the novel its remarkable power."
Booklist, starred review
"[Moses's] is a rough, tough life forthrightly told. . . . Highly recommended for all fiction readers."
Library Journal, starred review
“Thornton excels in showing a harrowing adult world through the eyes of a child who has been forced to grow up early. In the end, this is the rare work of fiction about childhood that refuses to admit any sentimentality into the narrative.”
Publishers Weekly "
Kid Moses is a lyrical, touching and profound book."
The Witness, Durban, South Africa
"An open-ended odyssey, as restless and contemplative as a traveler in the trackless veld. . . . This is a wonderfully honest, unsentimental and brutal look at issues that are affecting Africa today."
Cape Times, South Africa
"An exquisite narrative, harrowing, yet poignant." Bookslive
