3 Review(s)

Dave Eggers, author the poignant and semi-autobiographical novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, presents a powerful true story about one man’s brave struggle to help his neighbour in the aftermath of Hurriane Katrina in Zeitoun, winner of the American Book Award and the LA Times Book Award. In August 2005, as Hurricane Katrina blew in, the city of New Orleans has been abandoned by most citizens. But resident Abdulrahman Zeitoun, though his wife and family had gone, refused to leave. For days he traversed an apocalyptic landscape of flooded streets by canoe. But eventually he came to the attention of those ‘guarding’ this drowned city. Only then did Zeitoun’s nightmare really begin. Zeitoun is the powerful, ultimately uplifting true story of one man’s courage when confronted with an awesome force of nature followed by more troubling human oppression. ‘Eggers uses Zeitoun’s eyes to report on America’s reasonless post-Katrina world, Reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s documentaries, this is a true story told with the skills of a master of fiction. Immensely readable’ Independent