By the Grace of God: A True Story of Love, Family, War and Survival from the Congo - Hardcover

Ibumando, Suruba; Wechsler, Georgette

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0882821652 ISBN 13: 9780882821658

Publisher: New Horizon Press, 1999

Synopsis

This searing drama of the fate of both a family and a nation is set in the turbulent atmospheres of the Congo, Europe and America. It tells the remarkable, 40-year saga of a courageous family's miraculous survival during two devastating civil wars, the brutal rise and fall of the tyrant Mobutu and a desperate trek to safety.

About this title

From Booklist:

A chant of names--the Belgian Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Zaire, and once again the Democratic Republic of Congo--echoes the waves of colonialism, revolution, and civil war that have roared across this land with unendingly tragic results. Many histories have been written about the Congo, which is also the subject of Barbara Kingsolver's acclaimed novel, The Poisonwood Bible , and now Wechsler offers a personal account of how one woman's life has been shaped by her country's travails. Born in the mid-1950s, she fled certain death and lived the scarring existence of a refugee as a child. Then, under the care of her brave father, she reestablished a normal life in spite of the oppression of Mobutu's rule. Wechsler excelled at school, traveled to the U.S., and married an American, hoping that her homeland's troubles were over, only to find herself drawn right back into its sorrows when war erupted once again and her sister fell ill with AIDS, the other scourge tormenting that embattled land. Donna Seaman

From The Washington Post:

"...Wechsler offers a firsthand account of her family's life in post-independence Congo. ... this author brings a rare, insider's perspective to this book...

These are stories no outsider could tell... Wechsler smartly stays true to a child's point of view in retelling her early experiences as a refugee, and the reader is carried along through the hide and seek game played by soldiers and the pursued. Remarkable here is the mindset of a child raised on war: In her world the terrifying becomes ordinary.

Most poignant is the portrait of her father; her respect and love for him is palpable, and her pictures of a good, loving family under awful pressure are refreshing in the era of the dysfunctional-family memoir... "

About this edition

• Publisher: New Horizon Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0882821652
• ISBN 13: 9780882821658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200