num_pages: 160
description: Drawing on real accounts of the Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa this poignant timely fable reflects on both the strength and the fragility of life and humanitys place in the world. Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest where they shoot down bats with glee and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month they are dead bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healers potions nor the medical teams treatments could cure. Compounding the familys grief experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly and the boys father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival. In a series of moving snapshots Vronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future. Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.
language: English
title: In the Company of Men
publisher: Other Press