Soldiers of Light

'Bergner's journey is arduous, dangerous and brave - a journey in which both author and reader are irrevocably changed. Soldiers of Light is, in the end, a rare book indeed.' Aminatta Forna, Sunday Times

Daniel Bergner is an acclaimed journalist.  Based in Manhattan, he has travelled throughout Africa, from Liberia to Sudan, and is a contributor to Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, and the New Yorker. Soldiers of Light won an Overseas Press Club Award for international reporting and was named a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times.  It has recently been longlisted for the Lettres Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage.

In this moving and unforgettable narrative journalist Daniel Bergner travels into the heart of Sierra Leone, a country torn apart by war. This is the story of the people he encounters in a realm of fire and jungle as they rebuild their lives: Lamin, who lost his hands to save his daughter; Komba, child soldier and sometime cannibal; Neall Ellis, the mercenary pilot with a conscience; Valentine Strasser the embittered ex-dictator; and the Western outsiders trying to save a land of startling beauty and brutality. 
 
Shocking, often heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful, Soldiers of Light is a story of survival and a haunting work of literary reportage.

Daniel Bergner

Four Journeys into the Far Realms of Lust and Longing

Jacob is a man with an overwhelming attraction to female feet. The Baroness is a clothing designer and evangelical sadist. Roy is a wedding band singer entranced by his step daughter. Ron and Laura are simply in love - only Laura lost both her legs in a car accident, and Ron is beguiled by a beauty many would be blind to. 
 
How do we deal with desire? Our own, and the desires of others? How do we comprehend desires that are extreme, or unacceptable? And how do those who have them, live with them? 
 
In A Map of Desire Daniel Bergner takes us on a journey into human passion suffered, endured, and celebrated. Desire is a sometimes anarchic, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes destructive, sometimes redeeming, and always powerful force.Immersing himself in it through the people whose lives he follows and the scientists he spends time with who are trying to understand it, slowly he exposes and illuminates layers of our humanity.

Daniel Bergner

Books by Daniel Bergner

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