Jason Burke
In the Line of Fire
The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Faultline Between Christianity and Islam
By Eliza Griswold
Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 317pp £25
Eliza Griswold’s dense, intense and often beautifully written The Tenth Parallel ends with a bleak scene from the author’s travels in Nigeria. Reverend Abdu, a Muslim converted to Christianity, is trying to save the souls of a family of nomadic cattle herders who have been forced off their usual grazing lands by drought and have fetched up northwest of Jos, a town in the centre of the country. Abdu hopes to impress the family head, Mallam Ibrahim. Squatting in the family’s makeshift grass hut, Abdu attempts to set up a solar-powered DVD player to show Ibrahim a film which is supposed to convince him of the errors of his ways and the superiority of Christianity. ‘Who is Jesus?’ Abdu asks Ibrahim. ‘I don’t know,’ Ibrahim responds. ‘Who is Mohammed?’ ‘A Muslim.’ The DVD player dies. Abdu has forgotten to charge the batteries. ‘Will you accept Jesus?’ Abdu asks. ‘No … I like the way I pray, and I am not changing it,’ Ibrahim answers, and then asks if the preacher has any medicine for his cattle which have ‘swollen livers’. The machine, supplied by an evangelical American group, cost thousands of times more than the medicine would have. Abdu has none, however. The encounter ends.
The book is composed of similar vignettes. It is a fabulous piece of reportage. Griswold, also a poet, works mainly for the American magazines who are the only organisations these days with the resources, confidence and interest to send skilled, sensitive and literate people out to far-off places
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk