From Madagascar to the Sudan, Navid Kermani finds peoples and cultures in flux. In the Nuba Mountains, people are enduring war; residents of Nairobi inhabit a city shaped by colonialism; in southern Madagascar, farmers and fishers struggle with the first drought and famine to be attributed directly to climate change. As China and the West compete for scarce resources and wealthy Arab countries exert their influence on religion and culture, colonial crimes are still felt in extractive economies and through unaccountable governance. Yet the Eastern Africa that comes to life under Kermani’s critical and sensitive eye is that of the farmers and professionals, artists and soldiers, parents and children, priests and imams. Traditional music, Ethiopian jazz, and Sufi ritual songs are powerful currents of identity; faith is a unifying force in contested areas; violence and oppression are answered with perseverance and resistance. In the Other Direction Now is an essential work of human observation and understanding that reflects on issues of the present moment, and on the fundamental questions of life, in a region too often excluded from the world’s gaze.
