July 23, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
Six Months in Sudan
by James Maskalyk
Initially conceived as a blog, this memoir recounts the author’s stint with Doctors Without Borders in the border town of Abyei, Sudan.
After practicing medicine in rural Cambodia, Bolivia, and southern Africa, Dr. Maskalyk decided to travel to Sudan based on a commencement speech given by the writer Joan Didion urging students to take risks.
The author, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, details his experiences dealing with outbreaks of measles, malnourished children, and the violent conflict within the country.
Writes Dr. Maskalyk: “Some of the work in repairing the world is grim; much of it is not. Hope not only meets despair in equal measure, it drowns it.”
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau, 1745 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10019; spiegelandgrauinfo@randomhouse.com; http://www.randomhouse.com/spiegelandgrau; 320 pages; $25.00; ISBN 978-0-385-52651-7.
