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Rift
A young, inexperienced woman travels up the Rift Valley from Kenya to Ethiopia. A revolution is brewing, a famine has already struck. Someone has to grow up fast.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Liza Cody
90 books33 followersLiza Cody (real name Liza Nassim) is an English crime fiction writer.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 20, 2008
This is an amazing book that I just reread. It's a about a British woman working on a film shoot in Kenya who decides to drive to Ethiopia. She ends up in horrible situations with no transport, food or water. But she carries on. The writer must have experienced this trip herself because it is so real. It's a gripping story and I couldn't put it down.
February 11, 2014
A rather naive young woman takes an ill-conceived sojourn into Southern Ethiopia during the 1974 revolution in that country. What she imagines as a romantic excursion quickly proves to be a major error in judgement. It is a departure for Liza Cody from her popular Anna Lee mystery series. According to the author, the book was based, in part, on an actual experience of her own. She wrote in 2008...
"It's based on a trip I made myself at a time of famine and revolution. All the places are real, as are a lot of the characters and some of the events. I should not have been there, because to witness events like those and yet be able to do nothing to help made me part of the problem. I thought about it for over 10 years before I dared write about it. But even after 10 years, the trip was, in memory, still so catastrophic that I needed to face it and try to make sense of the experience.
I don't actually believe that writing a novel was the appropriate response, but it's the only skill I can use to remind people about other, godforsaken parts of the world where ordinary folk, just like you and me, endure or die in unbelievable suffering." - Liza Cody, July 2008
"It's based on a trip I made myself at a time of famine and revolution. All the places are real, as are a lot of the characters and some of the events. I should not have been there, because to witness events like those and yet be able to do nothing to help made me part of the problem. I thought about it for over 10 years before I dared write about it. But even after 10 years, the trip was, in memory, still so catastrophic that I needed to face it and try to make sense of the experience.
I don't actually believe that writing a novel was the appropriate response, but it's the only skill I can use to remind people about other, godforsaken parts of the world where ordinary folk, just like you and me, endure or die in unbelievable suffering." - Liza Cody, July 2008
May 20, 2014
Having read Cody's detective novels, I was curious about her stand alone novel. While billed as a crime/mystery, it is more a horror travelogue about trying to travel in Ethiopia with maps that misrepresent, unsavory travel companions, drought, famine, ticks, lice, heat, armed insurrection, etc. Among her observations is that she wanted to see attractions of the Rift valley, but she, as a foreigner, become the main attraction of the villagers. The children are relentless; the only refuge is the squalor of a room shared with vermin. Yikes! I turned on my faucet with hot water with a new appreciation.
August 13, 2016
Ugh--not at all up to Cody's usual. Vacuous protagonist, almost xenophobic in it's vicious portrayal of Ethiopia/Africa. And then nothing actually happens throughout the book. Perhaps it's something she just had to get off her chest, but quite a disappointment.
November 4, 2009
Adventure story in the Rift valley of Ethiopia.
July 20, 2012
Great creepy travel piece.
September 17, 2012
Really good read, and you'll learn a bit about Ethiopia and poverty along the way.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews