Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39744 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-29
• Released on: 2008-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In 1996 the brutal civil war in Rwanda spilled into neighboring Congo, triggering a conflict that has seethed for 12 long years, claimed more lives than any since WWII and received little acknowledgment or aid from the international community. AP correspondent Mealer spent three years in this shattered land, and his book is a perceptive, empathetic, stomach-twisting presentation of the human condition during chaos. Mealer depicts war and peace as the mighty arms of a hurricane; war hurtles thousands of terrified people into the bush; intermittent peace lures the lost ones home. Individuals and institutions, indigenous and Western alike, are overwhelmed by the confluence of political collapse, economic disintegration, international indifference and a generalized military ineffectiveness that prevents resolution of the conflict on any terms. The vivid vignettes of combat and its aftermath portend a forever war, and the author highlights the impotence of grassroots solutions that render any deliverance ephemeral at best. Mealer's book is a quiet paean to the courage he has witnessed, and its final salute to the many proud people of Congo is as much eulogy as affirmation. (May)
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Review

"Mealer is a gifted writer who reports his harrowing experiences with humility and humanity" —Greg Houle, African Update

"Goes a long way toward making the phrase "dark continent" the anachronism that it should be. " —Minneapolis CityPages

“With vivid prose and compelling emotion…. [Mealer] reports his own “creeping emotional atrophy” as he is repulsed and then spellbound by the violence and by the courageous people who struggled to make sense of the fighting.” —Booklist

“Mealer spent three years in this shattered land, and his book is a perceptive, empathetic, stomach-twisting presentation of the human condition during chaos….Mealer’s book is a quiet paean to the courage he has witnessed, and its final salute to ‘the many proud people of Congo’ is as much eulogy as affirmation.” —Publishers Weekly

"Gutsy, richly descriptive recollections effectively conjure grisly events in a troubled nation." —Kirkus Reviews

“Bryan Mealer has put his life on the line to bring us a story of terror and courage from the heart of Congo. It’s already an accomplishment just to go to such a place; to return with such a powerful and important story is rare indeed. Both as a journalist and as a reader, my hat’s off to Mealer.”—Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

“Gorgeous, heartbreaking, and redemptive. Bryan Mealer has given us a story of a people and a land nearer to our hearts than we know. An immensely honest job of reporting, wonderfully told by a writer who feels as much as he sees.”—Robert Kurson, author of Shadow Divers

“One has to be young and perhaps a touch mad to voluntarily travel, as Bryan Mealer has, by foot, boat, barge, bicycle, rickety airplane, and a train that goes off the rails, through one of the most violent places on earth. But a sane and cautious person would not have been able to bring back the vivid and tragic stories he has, from what is by far the world’s bloodiest—and most underreported—zone of conflict.”—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost

“Five years ago, Bryan Mealer left a comfortable desk job in New York for one of journalism’s worst bets: reporting from the harrowing—and virtually forgotten—war zone of the Congo. We are all very fortunate he chose to take that bet. In All Things Must Fight to Live, Mealer endeavors to make sense of the bewildering maze of conflicts that, until recently, tore apart the former Zaire while the outside world did shockingly little to prevent it. Even more important, he has succeeded in putting a human face to the struggles in this troubled corner of Africa, and leaves us with a portrait that is both deeply haunting and surprisingly hopeful. A profound achievement.”—Scott Anderson, author of Moonlight Hotel

About the Author
Bryan Mealer was born in Odessa, Texas, and spent his childhood in West Texas and San Antonio. He graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and spent time as a city reporter for the Austin Chronicle. He worked as an assistant editor at Esquire magazine in New York City before moving to Nairobi, Kenya, to become a freelance reporter. He later was the Associated Press staff correspondent in Kinshasa, Congo. He now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and contributes to several magazines.

Customer Reviews

A good way to learn about a distant and strange country
Highly recommended. Reading this book I learned a lot about the history of Congo and the suffering of its people. Once you started reading you can't really put it down. But be warned: The stories about gunboys, militia and so on are really cruel and reading about their atrocities makes you want to throw the book against the wall or shout at somebody.

Personal Memoir Of A Humanitarian Catastrophe
Bryan Mealer has penned a brutal memoir of his three years as a reporter in the Congo, three years when teenage gunboys roamed the countryside and city streets, when UN peacekeeping forces faced mystical leaders operating from jungle mountaintops, when rebel militias and government forces alike pillaged their own nation. It was a horrible time in the history of a country that has seen little else for the last hundred years.

While Mealer writes about the bloody atrocities he witnessed, the real story he tells is about himself. He's drawn back to the Congo three times, apparently addicted to the extreme discomfort and random violence he endures. His travels cover nearly the entire country from the capital of Kinshasa to the mineral-rich southern provinces to the guerilla-infested eastern region where an alphabet-soup of militias, foreign armies, and UN forces fight a never-ending war of terror, rape, and mutilation. He rides a newly-reconstructed rail line and even follows Conrad's trail up the Congo River via barge. At one point, he and his adventure-junkie buddies take off through the jungle on bicycles.

While Mealer tells us the names and stories of many Congolese he meets along the way, he never really gives much insight into them as anything other than victims. He says as much when he reflects on his bicycle journey:

"...once in the jungle, my own basic needs and level of comfort had stood in the way of learning anything. I didn't even know my riders' last names or anything about their families. I'd simply been too exhausted and hungry to care. It wasn't my proudest moment, and even now, those last days on the trail leave a sting of regret."

Still, All Things Must Fight To Live puts the reader close to the action and accurately reflects the aftermath of war and colonialism in one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo

Mealer delivers
I read this book in May and still find myself haunted by it. Episodes like the Kinshasa Fight Club or the surreal appearance of Jessica Lange at a triage camp will stay with me for a long long time.

Mealer tenderly renders the humanity of a situation most of us would prefer to think of as inhuman.

You owe it to yourself to take a look.