{"id":15401,"date":"2012-08-01T09:33:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T13:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=15401"},"modified":"2016-07-29T16:40:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T20:40:15","slug":"the-memory-of-love-by-aminatta-forna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-memory-of-love-by-aminatta-forna\/","title":{"rendered":"The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/08\/Memory-of-Love1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-33599 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/08\/Memory-of-Love1-522x800.jpg\" alt=\"Memory of Love\" width=\"522\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/08\/Memory-of-Love1-522x800.jpg 522w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/08\/Memory-of-Love1.jpg 736w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 522px) 100vw, 522px\" \/><\/a>Months (maybe longer) have passed since I finished <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aminattaforna.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Aminatta Forna<\/a>\u2019s third and latest title, exquisitely narrated by British actor\u00a0Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I think I just didn&#8217;t want to let it go by posting a review &#8230; but here&#8217;s the bottom line: stupendous.<\/p>\n<p><em>Memory\u00a0<\/em>has two of the elements I love most about great fiction: multiple perspectives and zig-zagging time, which woven together create a literary puzzle, unsettling in its myriad pieces, luminous once interlocked. The frame is Sierra Leone, and &#8216;now&#8217; is a time of post civil-war recovery although ongoing violence is never far off; over almost 450 pages, time moves fluidly through some four decades and three generations.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Elias Cole lies in a hospital bed, dying. When he&#8217;s able to speak, he shares fragments of his life with Dr. Adrian Lockheart (take notice of that name), a British psychologist with the best intentions, hoping to use his education and experience for good in an unfamiliar country so seemingly alien to his own. One late night, on the doorstep of Adrian&#8217;s apartment arrives Dr. Kai Mansaray, a gifted young surgeon who managed to survive the vicious massacres, whose truculent nightmares rarely give him rest, whose closest friend entices him with a new, past-free life in America.<\/p>\n<p>These three learned men, their memories, their presents, become thickly entangled &#8230; with each of their memories of love eventually laid bare\u00a0\u2013 vulnerable, betrayed, bloody &#8230; and yet always, there is the love. Narrator\u00a0Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is remarkable in voicing each character, but especially unforgettable in Elias&#8217; dying growl, Adrian&#8217;s naive hope, Kai&#8217;s wrenching helplessness; their voices haunt, constant reminders of the overwhelming personal price of war.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to a phenomenal writer and a narrator her dramatic equal,\u00a0<em>The Memory of Love\u00a0<\/em>proves to be a rare, extraordinary, breathtaking experience. I let it go for now &#8230; sharing testimony, investing in hope, believing in love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2011 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Months (maybe longer) have passed since I finished Aminatta Forna\u2019s third and latest title, exquisitely narrated by British actor\u00a0Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I think I just didn&#8217;t want to let it go by posting a review &#8230; but here&#8217;s the bottom line: stupendous. Memory\u00a0has two of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,5,287,81,6],"tags":[1416,84,6608,11,12,68,1417,13,1418,28,45],"class_list":["post-15401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-absolute-favorites","category-adult-readers","category-african","category-audio","category-fiction","tag-aminatta-forna","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-friendship","tag-girl-rising","tag-haves-vs-have-nots","tag-kobna-holdbrook-smith","tag-love","tag-memory-of-love","tag-politics","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-memory-of-love-by-aminatta-forna\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Months (maybe longer) have passed since I finished Aminatta Forna\u2019s third and latest title, exquisitely narrated by British actor\u00a0Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I think I just didn&#8217;t want to let it go by posting a review &#8230; but here&#8217;s the bottom line: stupendous. 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