Overview

Love, corruption, violence and the dangerous politics of aid in the Sudan, by an exciting new writer. Emma McCune’s passion for Africa, her unstinting commitment to the children of the Sudan, and her striking glamour set her apart from other aid workers the moment she arrived in southern Sudan. But no one was prepared for her decision to marry a local warlord – a man who seemed to embody everything she was working against – and throw herself into his violent quest to take over southern Sudan’s rebel movement. At once a disturbing love story and a penetrating examination of the Sudan, “Emma’s War” charts the process by which Emma’s romantic delusions led to her descent into the hell of Africa’s longest running civil war.

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9780006551478

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Reviews

'Ever since Victorian abolitionists and Christian missionaries traveled to Khartoum in the 19th century, the British aid worker, whether liberal do-gooder or conservative God-giver, has sought, many times over, to help Sudan's helpless. As Deborah Scroggins shows in her brilliantly penetrating portrait of one such worker, Emma McCune, those who think they are helping are more often than not harming. And those they are harming are far less helpless than their would-be rescuers have wanted to know. In her, Scroggins has found a feckless, captivating subject, as insufferable as the white man's insatiable need for redemption in Africa' Washington Post 'Deborah Scroggins uses the romantic aspects of this beautiful white woman's story to draw in unsuspecting readers. But she has a sharp eye, and her real aim is to tease out the inconsistencies of Emma McCune's brutally short life as a way of looking at how foreigners through the ages have involved themselves in the Sudan...Emma's War is about the politics of the belly, and what happens when the fat white paunch meets the swollen stomachs of the hungry in Africa. It is a sorry story, but Ms Scroggins tells it awfully well' Economist 'Emma's dreams, delusions and failures are those of all the white people who have tried to bring their idea of the good to Sudan. This is what makes her story, told so well here, worth telling' New York Times Book Review 'The most revealing book on Africa and the West's obsession with it that I have read in several years' --Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Ends of the Earth and The Coming Anarchy

You would expect a figure as glamorous as Emma McCune to die a heroic, martyred death. But in fact the white, illegal second wife of a Sudanese warlord - one who smuggled herself illegally aboard UN planes and recklessly tripped about the Horn of Africa trying to manipulate the Western press and abusing relief sent for the starving Sudanese - met a sad, banal end in a car accident. In this impressive book, Deborah Scroggins manages to weave the frustrating tale of Emma's life and death and the complicated history of Sudanese politics into a thoughtful, engrossing read. Emma McCune's life was one of unending melodrama. She was born in India, moved to England at two, and was affluently raised in Yorkshire by parents whose lifestyle exceeded their means. They lived in a draughty mansion until her father committed suicide when Emma was 11; the surviving family then moved into a council flat. This did not stop Emma from pursuing the life of privilege her parents felt was owed to them: she went to Oxford and took a year to fly around the world in a single-engine plane with a friend. It was at Oxford that adventure called to Emma: she fell in love with Africa, specifically Sudan, and tried desperately to obtain a position in the bush. Abandoning a master's degree for a position with Street Kids International, she set off to create schools in southern Sudan. There she met and married Riek Machar, a separatist warlord whose actions and orders murdered thousands, if not millions, of innocent Sudanese. Scroggins tries to be as fair as possible when presenting all viewpoints regarding Emma's marriage. In Riek, Emma managed to marry the African man she found so seductive, and in Emma, Riek enjoyed the status of a white wife with ties to various relief efforts operating in Sudan. Emma claimed to be Sudanese at heart and embraced the desperate way of life, enduring numerous diseases, massacres and death threats as she threw herself into her husband's political movement. Her life was notorious: she lived like an African queen in surroundings that are incomprehensible to Westerners, and both she and the people who loved her expected great things from her unborn child. This is an insightful, sensitive and powerfully written biography of a woman whose motivations may have seemed dubious, but whose sincerity and devotion were beyond question. (Kirkus UK)

'One of the best (books) I have ever read on the difficult relationship between the developed world and the Third World. An eye-opener. Scroggins is as brave as her subject!she has written a wonderful and challenging book.' William Shawcross, Sunday Times 'A wonderful book and a gripping history of the Sudan which doesn't shrink the complexities.' Observer 'Scroggins is to be congratulated for making the story of McCune's ill-fated foray into Africa such a good read.' Sunday Telegraph 'Deborah Scroggins' analysis provides sharp relevance. It is the story both of a woman and a strange and sorrowful world.' Sunday Independent 'Remarkable!it has the feel of an epic tale, taking in the tragedy of Sudan!Scroggins steers a tight path between writing this book as an account of her own fascination with Sudan and as the story of McCune's life.' New Statesman 'Her biography is a painstaking and loving portrait of this remarkable woman.' Evening Standard 'Deborah Scroggins has a sharp eye. Emma's War is about the politics of the belly, and what happens when the fat white paunch meets the swollen stomachs of the hungry in Africa. It is a sorry story, but Ms Scroggins tells it awfully well.' Economist 'Part history, part biography and part Scroggins' own memoir, Emma's War offers an enthralling, accessible account of Sudan's most recent history.' Sunday Business Post

'One of the best (books) I have ever read on the difficult relationship between the developed world and the Third World. An eye-opener. Scroggins is as brave as her subject!she has written a wonderful and challenging book.' William Shawcross, Sunday Times 'A wonderful book and a gripping history of the Sudan which doesn't shrink the complexities.' Observer 'Scroggins is to be congratulated for making the story of McCune's ill-fated foray into Africa such a good read.' Sunday Telegraph 'Deborah Scroggins' analysis provides sharp relevance. It is the story both of a woman and a strange and sorrowful world.' Sunday Independent 'Remarkable!it has the feel of an epic tale, taking in the tragedy of Sudan!Scroggins steers a tight path between writing this book as an account of her own fascination with Sudan and as the story of McCune's life.' New Statesman 'Her biography is a painstaking and loving portrait of this remarkable woman.' Evening Standard 'Deborah Scroggins has a sharp eye. Emma's War is about the politics of the belly, and what happens when the fat white paunch meets the swollen stomachs of the hungry in Africa. It is a sorry story, but Ms Scroggins tells it awfully well.' Economist 'Part history, part biography and part Scroggins' own memoir, Emma's War offers an enthralling, accessible account of Sudan's most recent history.' Sunday Business Post

Author Information

Deborah Scroggins is the author of Emma's War, which was translated into ten languages and won the Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize. Scroggins has written for the Sunday Times Magazine, The Nation, Vogue, Granta, and many other publications, and she won two Overseas Press Club awards and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award as a foreign correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She divides her time between Barnstable, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.

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