The Translator (2008)

In 2003, Daoud Hari's village in western Sudan was destroyed, and his brother killed, by government-backed soldiers. Determined to publicize such atrocities, the multilingual Hari served as a guide for foreign journalists. In The Translator, our hero (and few narrators deserve the term more) simply but evocatively describes his adventures, including being held and tortured by members of the Sudanese Army. Mercifully, Hari's optimistic outlook and belief in the goodness of mankind — despite the many times when heavily armed people seem hell-bent on disproving that belief — leaven what could have been a very bleak book. A