Review: A Moonless, Starless Sky

By Alexis Okeowo
Hachette Books, 2017

When places in Africa are mentioned in the news, many outsiders visualize the entire continent, not realizing that there are 54 currently recognized nations of extremely wide cultural, religious, geographic, and language diversity. A Moonless, Starless Sky is an ambitious and successful account of current affairs with keen human-interest stories, focused on Uganda, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Somalia. Alexis Okeowo, who writes for The New Yorker, is a powerful storyteller with a journalist’s instinct for detail and a humanitarian’s dedication. She is fearless in pursuit of true and nuanced moments. Here, she profiles ordinary people rising to heroic actions while confronting danger in their communities; the result is a solid attempt to record the history and lives of those whose stories have never been told. read more at BookBrowse