The Hired Man

by Aminatta Forna

pass by the day the shells stop and see the priest (he’d shown courage in the last months, leading the funerals to the graveyard): he is moving a large silver cross out of the way of the weather and thieves. In the street a dog stands on a low roof and barks at the heads of passers-by. The smell of scorched brick and dust mixes with the odour of oleander. For twenty minutes I help the priest shift rubble and broken statues, then I walk through Gost as I haven’t for weeks. Over the days that follow memorial notices are posted on telegraph poles and lamp posts throughout Gost, so that the poles and posts flutter with white paper like they do at carnival time; some notices are new and brightly white, others rippled and water-stained, streaked with ink. Some sheets of paper are blank, washed clean by the weather; announcements of new deaths are pasted over the old.

Something about the writing on this page jumped out as more arresting than other pages. I would say it’s the sensory experience, but the author does an excellent job through the book, especially with smell.

The rain comes down suddenly, though the sky stays bright.

The author uses several examples of sudden and shocking events where the characters remain unmoved; snake, wild boar. I love it that when the rain, that you know is coming, finally appears it does so in the same way.