SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Speaking to the Wound: Are Justice and Healing in Africa Mutually Exclusive?

Gary Geddes has written a much-anticipated book called Drink the Bitter Root: A writer’s search for justice and healing in Africa, based on his trauma and human rights interviews with victims of violence in Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Somaliland. Ottawa's Ian Smillie describes the book as “a deeply textured journey without maps into the the unexplored rifts of sub-Saharan Africa, the human experience and the psyche. It's also the masterful handling of a full pallette." Foreign Affairs Editor Jonathan Manthorpe calls it “A splendid piece of work that brought back many memories, some I'd tried hard to bury, but also all the light and joy of Africa.”

Gary Geddes has written and edited more than forty books and won a dozen national and international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region), the Lt.-Governor's Award for Literary Excellence (BC), and the Gabriela Mistral Prize from the government of Chile, awarded simultaneously to Nobel laureates Vaclav Have and, Octavio Paz as well as to Ernesto Cardenal, Rafael Alberti and Mario Benedetti.