1985
The Great Thirst
Based on old African legends, this novel traces the life and loves of Mojamaje, Eater of Rocks, who leads the BaNare people against their combined enemies of nature and the Boers.
“A complex story encompassing five generations of comic and inspiring characters, which is remarkable enough, but it also captures the courage, imagination, wit and warmth that have sustained Black Africa in its tumultuous passage.”
The New York Times
“If endless, overlapping layers of human history had material substance, they might reach the moon. Instead they fill books. In this case they do both: they fill this book and reach for the moon—and grasp it. . . . Wherever it came from, whatever else you must miss, read this book.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“William Duggan turns history into legend and myth as he spins this yarn . . . rich and full of wonderful characters too good to be missed . . . a beautiful first novel.”
UPI
“Duggan is a genuine storyteller who has mastered the basic rule of his craft, the inexorable whetting of curiosity, without which, as E.M. Forster remarked, primitive audiences tended to change storytellers at the point of a spear. . . . Presents a heart of Africa brightened by sharing delight in a good story, cleverly told.”
The Houston Post
“For all its charm, The Great Thirst is a closely observed study of the economic and political development of southern Africa between the Boer invasion and World War II . . . combines the complex abbreviations of a Chinese puzzle with the deceptive simplicity of a folk tale.”
Voice Literary Supplement
