Book reviews: new non-fiction about an American surgeon in Sudan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and an adventurous couple
New books on courage in the face of inhumanity, the US Supreme Court’s most liberal voice, and quitting the day job and moving to Botswana
by James Verini
The Atavist Magazine (e-book)
With long-form journalism continuing to lose ground to blog posts and news snaps, it’s heartening to read The Atavist Magazine’s 10,000-20,000-word narratives, which lend themselves perfectly to Kindle Singles. James Verini is back, this time with a story about Dr Tom Catena, an American surgeon trying against the odds to save the lives of the Nuba people in Sudan. Blacks who practise Christianity and Islam as well as native religions, they are the target of the scorched-earth policy of President Omar al-Bashir’s regime, dominated by Islamists and descendants of Arabs. The only trained surgeon left in the Nuba mountains, he works from the Mother of Mercy hospital to save victims of the bombings that started in 2011. If Verini’s writing verges on hagiography, there is a reason: his subject is saintly. In the late 1990s, Catena left the US for Kenya to work with a physician/priest. Then he heard of the Mother of Mercy in Sudan and, despite knowing of the Nuba only through the 60s photographs of Leni Riefenstahl, he made the move. Readers will move through The Doctor with a grimace but they will be grateful that Catena’s story has been told.
by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik