Poor Mercy

by Jonathan Falla

Poor Mercy is a vivid, engrossing work of fiction' - Michel Faber, The Guardian 'An unusual love story told with insight and tenderness, it is studded with beautifully observed descriptions of place' - Jennie Renton, Scottish Review of Books 'Poor Mercy fulfils an important function, preserving a wretched moment in history, giving substance to events that would otherwise soon be forgotten in favour of the next humanitarian crisis' - Claudia Pugh-Thomas, TLS Set in Darfur, this novel is a dramatic and tragic story of an improbable love between two people caught up in an African famine: Mogga and Leila, a black and an Arab, should supposedly not even like each other. But as the country teeters on the edge of catastrophic famine and civil war looms, they cling to each other's dignity, humour and humanity. Both work for the same European aid agency. Both are vulnerable, targets for hatred and resentment. Both are strangely, triumphantly resilient. Based on his own experience of disaster agencies, Falla's novel is fiercely authentic, poignant and darkly witty. As the expatriates bicker, their English team leader struggles to unravel the evil politics behind the famine, and reaches a highly controversial decision. But he may not be able to save the local people who have put themselves on the line. The foreigners can always take themselves off home when things go wrong; for the locals, it may already be too late as the book builds towards a terrifying climax.

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2011

About the author

Jonathan Falla was born in 1954 in Jamaica, where his father lectured in English Literature at the University of the West Indies. The family returned to England a year later on a boat laden with bananas.

During the 1990s Jonathan was writing drama. A BBC feature film, The Hummingbird Tree, was shot in Trinidad with a local crew, and went on to win several awards. This helped Jonathan to gain the first Fulbright/T.E.B.Clarke Fellowship to study at the film school of the University of Southern California. The script that he wrote there concerned the Chinese occupation of Tibet. It was never filmed, but became his first published novel, Blue Poppies. Other drama productions included Down the Tubes, a play for community theatre in Edinburgh, and River of Dreams, a musical for children with composer Gordon Murch. He was also translator and scriptwriter for Diriamba!, a co-production between the Edinburgh Theatre Workshop and Teatro Nixtayolero of Nicaragua which won a ‘Fringe First’ on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Five other novels followed: Poor Mercy, Glenfarron, and The Physician of Sanlucar, The White Porcupine, and Good News from Riga.
Jonathan has also written wide-ranging non-fiction, including an edited war memoir of his father, The Luck of the Devil, a collection of essays and travel writing, Beyond the Roadblocks, and an illustrated memoir of the 'hippy trail' to India in 1974, Saama: Innocents in Asia. His account of a year spent with the Karen rebels in Burma, True Love & Bartholomew, is part ethnography, part autobiography, and part historical study, and is widely recognised as a major contribution to the understanding of ethnic conflicts in Asia.
Jonathan is currently an arts lecturer for the UK's Open University, and for ten years has been director of the St Andrews University summer school in creative writing.

Reviews

[Blair H. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was billed as a love story, but the real story is more important than a love story, which was, for me, a relatively marginal element. We are taken into the shady worlds of famine, aid, corruption and humanity. Although the location was unfamiliar to me, the lovely writing brought it, and the characters who inhabit these worlds, clearly to life. I was drawn in, appreciating the work, frustrations, strengths and flaws of those who struggle in an inhospitable environment. Reading this now, in 2026, we can see from afar the culmination of events that were playing out in this novel.

[Andrea Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book opened my eyes to the inner workings of aid programmes and brought me back in time somewhat. At times the writing seems very jagged and disorganised, which could relate to the how the agency operates within Sudan, but I found this made the plot and characters difficult to follow.
Still a good read and learned a huge amount about Sudan in the process.

[Melitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good book, all aid agency workers and all multinational donor countries should read this book to help understand how giving "free food" often causes more problems than it solves, and that all data about famines etc should be viewed cautiously, especially in countries where it is difficult to travel because of lawlessness. Falla gives excelent cameos of the various people who you would find in a country aid situation, expatriate and local. The real story of western Sudan is tragic, but this book manages to inject some humour along the way. Be warned: there are no happy endings.

[Lucy Cokes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really great tale about Sudanese aid-workers, concentrating on people and relationships. Though not my absoloute favorite book, it was a fairly easy read, and som bits were absoloutly gripping. Falla tends to describe in great detail the smaller characters, sometimes giving them whole sections, and this can be distracting, especially when I didn't feel like the relationship between Leila and Mogga was fully developed. A good, but sad, endin as well! I really want to read Blue Poppies.

[Hannah Facknitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A genuinely incredible book that delves into uncomfortable realities of western aid in developing countries. It does not portray these organizations fondly and spends its pages carefully dismantling the reader's notions of aid and humanitarian work. It is powerful and gripping, telling the important story of those who live the crises these organizations work in.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poor Mercy is a great book - at times, quite harrowing. It is after all about Darfur and its endless cycles of famine. Very thought provoking.

[Lindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent story which blows the lid on the international aid 'trade. Well worth a read.