Author

April, 2024​

A Long Walk to Water

By

Linda Sue Park

This is a moving true account of the lives of two Sudanese.  A boy named Salva, his story starts in 1985 and we pick-up the story of a girl, Nya, starting in 2008.  It is a story within a story. 

​

The first scene has Salva sitting in classroom unable to focus on his teacher or the lesson.  Daydreaming of what he will do after school dismisses.  In an instant his entire world is turned upside down.  All his hopes and aspirations vanish when gun fire erupts in his village.  The northern Sudan government ruled by the Muslims is at war with southern anti-Muslim rebels.   His teacher warns the children not to return to their homes but to escape to the bush and keep running.  Salva’s exodus from the familiar and family initiates a journey lasting well over a decade taking him from the Sudan to Ethiopia, to Kenya, and eventually to Rochester, New York.  Along the way he encounters starvation, death by wild animals, militancy, and loneliness.  After years of separation from mother, father, and brothers he assumes that they were all murdered on that fateful day when his village was attacked. 

​

The storyline for Nya is intertwined with that of Salva, although decades apart.  She is a young girl whose lot in life is to fetch water.  It takes her all day to retrieve a bucket of filthy diseased water from a distant pond which is the only source for her family.  Day-in-day-out water is at the center of her existence.  And when the pond dries-up they must migrate to find more.  This in spite of the fact that it makes them deathly sick.

It is a miserable existence for both Salva and Nya.  It is their fate.  And it is fate that ultimately brings them together at the end of the book with the hope of something better.  This a short book…121 pages.  But it is packed with incredible images of poverty and the human struggle to survive.  Yet it is a story of overcoming all odds.  It is a very good read and provides insights into the those who live on the dark continent. 

​

​

​

​

​