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SUZANNE GRAY SPARKS PASSIONATE LOVE AGAINST BACKGROUND OF VIOLENT CONGO POLITICS IN HER NEW NOVEL Anyone trying to keep abreast of news from central Africa will not have an easy time of it. As enlightened as we may be (and many of us are perhaps not as enlightened as we think we should be) Central Africa continues to confound us, always keeping us guessing. As we approach the end of another century, we are increasingly uneasy over the thought that the nation now called Congo will become an explosive force that will tear Africa apart, its tentacles reaching out to the rest of Africa, Asia, and Europe. It is a country under enormous pressure, pushed and pulled by its neighbors-Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, etc.-as the government in its capital, Kinshasa, trembles on the brink of revolt and toppling headfirst into disaster, depending on the news of the day. To put this situation into proper focus one should remember that the modern independence movement in Africa is only a few decades old, beginning with a giant step in 1960, when a nation of people threw off their colonial yoke and became the ex-Belgian Congo, then re-named Zaire, now known as Congo, a sure sign of its volatility. Back then the black native population wrenched control of the country from the Belgian colonials and established their independent nation, a land bursting with almost inexhaustible natural resources, thus giving them every reason to have the highest hopes for a prosperous and peaceful future in the family of nations. And so? What happened? What went wrong? And why? As surely as the Congo River flows and time passes and human struggles tear nations apart, so the inevitable has happened. We see now this land torn up by bloodshed and warring factions backed shamefully by corrupt foreign money furnished by countries with high selfish stakes involved. To try to understand why this is happening one must focus on life in the Congo nation in those critical years, the early 1960s, just after it declared its independence, with the Secretary General of the United Nations struggling to keep it from fracturing (which effort eventually cost him his life). Until now we have had scant and sketchy accounts of life in this giant of a country in this period. But new insight has become available in the form of a novel by Suzanne Gray entitled Against the Current of the Congo. As a work of fiction, it is not a reference work full of historical facts and political data. But as a picture of life in a new nation, it is clear and illuminating. The infrastructure of the new, confused country was a shambles. The remaining stubborn Europeans who would not or could not flee did not know how to treat or be treated by the black native population, who now had a whole new set of rules to live by but no experience in how to handle them. This new fragile and independent nation, the very essence of what we presume to call "The Third World," was faced with a daunting task, but courageously, if clumsily, tried to tackle it. For all who had to deal with it, this was an exciting, challenging, heart-breaking time. Reading Suzanne Gray's novel, we view this watershed moment in African history through the eyes of Claudia Fouquet, a young woman of European descent. She is a complex character, vulnerable yet strong. She's mercurial and principled, and she grows through the novel from a self-absorbed and somewhat spoiled young lady to become a dedicated, tireless humanitarian, tested daily to the extreme limits of her endurance. Until. Antoine appears on the scene. He, the other main character, is also a European, a man of mystery, a doctor with a secret past. Because of his reticence in revealing his private life, the relationship between him and Claudia inevitably becomes one of frustrated urges and emotions. The current of feeling between these two strong-willed people is so strong that they find themselves bristling with anger when they secretly want to spark and ignite physical love. The climax of their relationship is reached when the two star-crossed lovers board a river boat and travel upstream along the mighty Congo River, deeper and deeper into this land of dark mystery that provokes the most profound probing into the nature of their passion. Suzanne Gray has written a novel swirling with currents, set against a timeless tormenting river, in which human passion vies with the powerful forces of nature. |
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About the Author Suzanne Gray's international career has included assignments in Italy for the State Department, in England for the deluxe hotel industry, in France as an editor, and in the U.S. as an official court reporter. She is the author of the epic poem "Betrayal," broadcast with musical accompaniment twice during prime time by National Public Radio. She is also the author of the recent novel 'Gio. She lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia. |
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Against the Current of
the Congo 278 pages, paperback, $24.95 For ordering information, click here or phone (800) 662-8351 |