Elaine Neil Orr is professor of English at North Carolina State University in Raleigh where she teaches world literature and creative writing. She also serves on the faculty of the brief-residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University in Louisville. Author of two scholarly books and the memoir, Gods of Noonday- A White Girl's African Life, she has been a featured speaker and writer-in-residence at numerous universities and conferences and is a frequent fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She grew up in Nigeria.
Praise for A Different Sun
“As lyrical and passionate a novel as has ever been written, A
Different Sun shines in the mind like a rare gem...A memorable and
altogether original story.”—Lee Smith, New York Times bestselling
author of Fair and Tender Ladies and The Last Girls
“A magnificent novel that explores the charged juncture between
nineteenth-century Africa and the slaveholding South. This is the
spellbinding, richly imagined story of missionaries Emma and Henry
Bowman—inspired by historical figures—and the remarkable people
they encounter on their transformative journey. Although A
Different Sun might be seen as an Out of Africa for the
twenty-first century, Orr’s is an original and important new voice
in American fiction.”—Angela Davis-Gardner, author of Plum Wine and
Butterfly’s Child
“For anyone who has been waiting for a writer to imagine the white
traveler to Africa from an altogether different angle, here is
Elaine Neil Orr’s brilliant novel. It goes to the heart. It goes to
the bone. You won't be able to put it down.”—Peggy Payne, author of
Sister India and Revelation
“An important book, one which unflinchingly explores tensions
between Christianity and African religions, slavery and freedom,
madness and love.”—Wayne Caldwell, author of Cataloochee and
Requiem by Fire
“A powerful exploration of ‘correctness of principle’...a sharp
statement about morality...an exploration of love and true
goodness...A beautiful novel, exquisitely written, perfectly
complex, true to the past, relevant today, unforgettable.”—Philip
F. Deaver, author of Silent Retreats, winner of the Flannery
O’Connor Award for Short Fiction
“Extraordinary...grips the imagination and doesn’t let go. Here is
rendered as fierce a spirituality as anything you can read in
Dostoevsky. This is a book of high adventure with life and death
stakes both for the body and the soul. It has a penetrating
authenticity that will make your hair stand on end.”—Sena Jeter
Naslund, New York Times bestselling author of Ahab’s Wife and Four
Spirits
“Lush, evocative, breathtaking in its descriptions, and deeply
spiritual in its themes of love, forgiveness, and transformation,
this extraordinary novel shines with light and depth. Reminiscent
of Barbara Kingsolver’s magnum opus, The Poisonwood Bible, with
elements of Joseph Conrad and Louise Erdrich, Orr’s stunning debut
is starkly beautiful and true to life.”—Library Journal (starred
review)
Ask a Question About this Product More... |