A Road Through Mali-Kuli
By Agi Kiss 

"The idea is that if you look at the forest from far away, it looks like a blanket of solid green. When you get a little closer, you see there are actually lots of different shades of green. And if you get right inside it like we are now, you see it's also black and white and brown and yellow and red…" From "A Road Through Maki-Kuli"

     Carol Simmons is an American who works for the WCA, the Women's Coalition for Action. Charges of financial mismanagement, and perhaps even more serious violations, are leveled against Margaret Waiyala, president of the Muwatumi Greengoods Women's Cooperative, which is supported by WCA. Carol must leave a troubled marriage to go to Africa in search of the truth. What she finds in Rumura doesn't answer her growing concerns. Instead, she is thrown into a confusing web of deceit, ambition, and betrayal. She begins to receive strange notes, left for a Mrs. Simon. The messages leave her troubled, as does the corruption around her. Who is trying to save the richness of Rumura, and who is raping the environment for their own profit? The answers aren't simple-and the questions are just as troubling.

     Agi Kiss has written a first-rate novel that blends together a superb plot with the reality of problems faced in a continent that blends together incredible environmental resources- and a people who must find their own soul. Prejudice and greed threaten to bring the richness of this land to ruin. Author Kiss, an Ecologist at the World Bank in Washington, DC, gives A Road Through Mali-Kuli a sense of realism that is striking and unforgettable.

     Well-written, intriguing, and fast-paced, Kiss has crafted a novel that not only entertains, but teaches. The glimpse she gives us into the "dark continent" is enlightening and beautifully presented. I highly recommend it.