The book
An outstanding account of saving lives in one of the most dangerous and desperate places on Earth.
James Maskalyk set out for the contested border town of Abyei, Sudan in 2007 as Médicins Sans Frontières' newest medical doctor in the field. Equipped with his experience as an emergency physician in a Western hospital and his desire to understand the hardest parts of the world, Maskalyk's days were spent treating malnourished children, fending off a measles epidemic and staying out of the soldiers' way. Worn raw in the struggle to meet overwhelming needs with inadequate resource, he returned hom six months later more affected by the experience, the people and the place than he had anticipated.
Six Months in Sudan began as a blog that he wrote from his hut in Sudan in an attempt to bring his family and friends closer to his hot, hot days. It is a story about humans: the people of Abyei who suffer its hardship because it is their home, and the doctors, nurses and countless volunteers who leave their homes with the tools to make another's easier to endure. With great hope and insight, Maskalyk illuminates a distant place - its heat, its people, its poverty, its war - to inspire possibilities for action.
The Reviews
The prose in his messages is carefully crafted, often poetic, always deliberate . . . From the moment he disembarks from a World Food Programme plane at the airstrip in Abyei, in southern Kordofan, you're there, in the dust with him - and, when the rains come, in the sea of mud.
Mary Crockett, ScotsmanThrough a narrative both personal and provocative, Maskalyk succeeds in animating the quotidien struggles of life in Sudan in ways news reports never will - "for those who think life is too short, come to Abyei."
Peter Geoghegan, Sunday Business Post
A moving, sometimes beautifully written, account of a young doctor's time in the Sudanese town of Abeyi . . . The book is very well written and consequently easy to read, despite the subject matter. The juxtaposition of the blog entries and the text works particularly well . . . The book serves as a timely reminder that saving people's lives is worth doing, even in a recession. We are also saving ourselves.
Padraig Carmody, Irish TimesVisceral and immediate . . . As medical literature this book excels; as an insight into that exhilarating, life changing step into chaos his account can hardly be bettered.
Jonathan Kaplan, British Medical JournalThis is an extraordinary book, a piercingly authentic account of the fear, confusion and hope of a young doctor newly deployed to a humanitarian crisis wrapped around by a war. James Maskalyk's commitment to survival - his own as well as his patients' - illuminates this account of doctoring in the sort of desperate place where it couldn't matter more.
Jonathan Kaplan, author of THE DRESSING STATIONIn Six Months in Sudan, James Maskalyk tells of his extraordinary experiences working as a doctor for MSF, without a trace of vanity or self-congratulation. His book serves as a salutary reminder of what it means to be an excellent doctor, and a brave man. For anyone who is interested in a career in medicine, or in courage, this is a book to read.
Gabriel Weston, author of DIRECT REDSix Months is Sudan is a wrenchingly heartbreaking account of distant agonies almost too pointed to grasp. Learning about Maskalyk's work there is stirring, but the real miracle is this book paints a picture so precisely and vividly that it becomes impossible to look away. This is Maskalykâs accomplishment, and his gift to the Sudanese and to us. The shame of our indifference retreats before his exhortation: âlearn, and understand,â and perhaps a more bearable future becomes possible for all of us.
Kevin PattersonThis journey is beautifully told in sharp beats, and lyrical notes. It is the voyage of a young doctor out into a hard world, and deep within his own heart.
Vincent LamMaskalyk's soft prose is beautiful and invites with the right intimate details. He offers a rare window on the inner life of an aid worker, on what it means to be a humanitarian around the hard edges of war, and on the certain drive to go on. Why? Because in his words, `hope not only meets despair in equal measure, it drowns it.'
James Orbinski
