Child Witch Kinshasa (eBook)

“If you liked The Poisonwood Bible, then Child Witch Kinshasa is for you.” (Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg) Child Witch Kinshasa is an epic tale of travel, love and loss, set in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and England. This colorful tragicomedy unfolds through the eyes of Dudu – a young Congolese boy, Frank – a British journalist, and his wife Ruth – a mother of two, with a full-time job in London. Their lives entwine, and cultures clash, after chance encounters that reverberate from Kinshasa to Kingston-upon-Thames. The story begins when an evangelical pastor visits Dudu’s remote village and accuses him of being a ‘child witch’ with mysterious and dangerous powers. Dudu flees his village to stay with relatives and avoid divine retribution, but his plan goes wrong and he finds himself alone and homeless. To survive, he teams up with Kilanda, a former child soldier, whose reckless sense of adventure spins them – Huck Finn style – across the vast country by road, rail, and river. Meanwhile, British journalist Frank is travelling around DR Congo, training local reporters in a western-funded project. It's a tough job, especially as his efforts are undermined by propaganda from government and rebels locked in civil war. Eventually, Frank wonders whether he can actually do any good in the DRC. The answer comes when he helps to rescue two boys from a beating in Kinshasa. Frank offers to re-home the youngest – Dudu – but this savvy street kid has learned the hard way not to trust adults, especially foreigners. Just as Frank is about to give up and go home to England, his wife Ruth has an irresistible idea that changes everything, for everybody. The story continues in Child Witch London. Mike Ormsby was born in Ormskirk, England, in 1959. He visited Romania in 1994 as a BBC reporter, returned to train journalists at BBC School in Bucharest until 1997, and has been based in the country, on and off, ever since. He is the author of a two-part novel – Child Witch Kinshasa and Chil