Giles Foden

'Every new novel by Giles Foden is something to celebrate - my hand leaps to the shelf' PAUL THEROUX'The most original and interesting novelist of his generation' ALLAN MASSIE, SCOTSMAN2039, the Skeleton Coast of Namibia. 160,000 kilometres-square of ocean-crashed desert, littered with bones, shipwrecks and shattered dreams.Cat Brosnan, a young scientist, has just arrived, aiming to track down a much-needed water source believed to lie hidden within this vast and hostile landscape.Six years before, the search for that same fabled aquifer had led Cat's own mother to abandon her daughter in Ireland, never to be heard of again.Now Cat is ready to find out what happened to her mother, to succeed where she failed and finally discover the whereabouts of a freshwater reserve hidden under sand and rock.But she's not the only one looking for the aquifer: mining corporations want it, foreign governments too, never mind all those others who need it just to survive.In a world of sand, sun and water wars, the aquifer begins to seem like a fantasy, Cat's quest for it a mission to find her own true self.

'Every new novel by Giles Foden is something to celebrate - my hand leaps to the shelf' PAUL THEROUX'The most original and interesting novelist of his generation' ALLAN MASSIE, SCOTSMAN2039, the Skeleton Coast of Namibia. 160,000 kilometres-square of ocean-crashed desert, littered with bones, shipwrecks and shattered dreams.Cat Brosnan, a young scientist, has just arrived, aiming to track down a much-needed water source believed to lie hidden within this vast and hostile landscape.Six years before, the search for that same fabled aquifer had led Cat's own mother to abandon her daughter in Ireland, never to be heard of again.Now Cat is ready to find out what happened to her mother, to succeed where she failed and finally discover the whereabouts of a freshwater reserve hidden under sand and rock.But she's not the only one looking for the aquifer: mining corporations want it, foreign governments too, never mind all those others who need it just to survive.In a world of sand, sun and water wars, the aquifer begins to seem like a fantasy, Cat's quest for it a mission to find her own true self.

From the acclaimed author of The Last King Of Scotland, Freight Dogs explores the individual consequences of Africa's 'Great War', distilling a world-shaking conflict into the unputdownable story of one man's life.

'Each flick of the page suggests the tick of a countdown' New York Times Books Review'Artfully well-orchestrated' Sunday Times'Splendidly tense' Los Angeles Times The D-day landings - the fate of millions of men and the entire future of Europe depends on the right weather conditions on the English Channel on a single morning. A team of Allied scientists is charged with agreeing on an accurate forecast five days in advance. But is it even possible to predict the weather so far ahead? Will Wallace Ryman, reclusive pacifist and renowned forecaster, divulge his secrets to the team? Can Henry Meadows, a young maths prodigy, save the day? Or will turbulence prove even more elusive than imagined and events, like the weather, begin to spiral out of control?FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

'Captivating ... A highly accomplished historical novel' Washington Post 'Superbly described ... achieves a subtle, disconcerting effect' New York Review of BooksIn the dying days of the 19th century, the world's eyes turn to the small South African town of Ladysmith. Under siege from Boer forces, British soldiers and townsfolk wait for rescue. They try to keep their spirits up with parties and cricket matches, but General Buller's relief column cannot break through. All that arrives is danger, disease and starvation. Amongst a cast of characters ranging from Irish Republican renegades to London literary editors, from Churchill to Gandhi, is one young woman. For Bella Kiernan, the siege represents an unexpected chance to rebel against constricting social and domestic bonds and pursue a life of romance and adventure.From the bestselling author of THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

'A fascinating read: Wilbur Smith meets William Boyd in the warm seas and spice-scented air of Zanzibar' New Statesman'A riveting thriller' ObserverThe year is 1998. Nick, a marine biologist, is working on coral reef protection off the idyllic island of Zanzibar. While on a trip to mainland Tanzania, he meets Miranda, who works in the US embassy there. As romance blooms, the couple could be forgiven for thinking they are living in paradise - until they find themselves embroiled in a desperate terrorist conspiracy.From the bestselling author of the LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

1996: in a Ugandan dive bar, the 'freight dogs' gather. An anarchic group of mercenary pilots from Texas, Russia, Kenya and Belgium who transport weapons between warring African nations, without allegiance. And tonight they have a new recruit - Manu, a 19-year-old cowherd fleeing Congo's bloody war.Taken in by this band of unlikely brothers, he's soon seeing his vast country from above and falling in love with flying. But no matter how fast he flies, trouble follows closely behind. And when the past erupts back into this new life, Manu is forced to leave behind African skies for the chilly embrace of northern Europe. Will Manu be able to reinvent himself yet again? And is Belgian volcanologist Anke Desseaux the answer to his problems - or simply another one of them?From the writer of The Last King of Scotland comes an unforgettable story of survival - about how to live and love after trauma, set against a backdrop of world-shaking conflict.

'A gripping tale of tropical corruption' Spectator'A genuine imaginative achievement' Daily Telegraph'As convincing and terrifying a portrait of a capricious tyrant as I have ever read' Evening StandardIn an incredible twist of fate, a Scottish doctor on a Ugandan medical mission becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world's most barbaric figures: Idi Amin. Impressed by Dr. Garrigan's brazen attitude in a moment of crisis, the newly self-appointed Ugandan President Amin hand picks him as his personal physician and closest confidante. Though Garrigan is at first flattered and fascinated by his new position, he soon awakens to Amin's savagery - and his own complicity in it. Horror and betrayal ensue as Garrigan tries to right his wrongs and escape Uganda alive.

‘He is the sickness and you maintain that sickness.’ Idi Amin is the self-declared President of Uganda. When Scottish medic Nicholas Garrigan becomes his personal physician, he is catapulted into Amin's inner circle. A useful asset for the British Secret Service, is Garrigan the man on the inside, or does he have blood on his hands too? Giles Foden's multi-award-winning novel The Last King of Scotland is an electrifying thriller about corruption and complicity. This stage adaptation by Steve Waters premiered at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in September 2019, directed by Gbolahan Obisesan.

Born in what is now Ukraine to Polish parents, naturalised as a British citizen, and schooled on the high seas of international commerce, Joseph Conrad was a true citizen of the world. His novels bore witness to the dehumanising repercussions of empire, explored a world in which state-sponsored terrorism ruined individuals' lives, and pioneered complex narrative structures and subjective points-of-view in what was to become the first wave of literary modernism. To mark his 160th birthday, 14 authors and critics from Britain, Poland and elsewhere have come together to celebrate his legacy with new pieces of fiction and non-fiction. Conrad felt that the writer's task was to offer 'that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.' In an age of increasing isolationism, these celebrations remind you of the value of such glimpses. Commissioned as part of the Joseph Conrad Year 2017.

What would it be like to become Idi Amin's personal physician? Giles Foden's best-selling thriller is the story of a young Scottish doctor drawn into the heart of the Ugandan dictator's surreal and brutal regime. Privy to Amin's thoughts and ambitions, he is both fascinated and appalled. As Uganda plunges into civil chaos he realizes action is imperative - but which way should he jump?

The real-life story of the events that inspired the classic film The African Queen chronicles the exploits and adventures of Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, the oldest lieutenant commander in the British Navy, who was given the task of trekking overland with two gunboats, Mimi and Toutou, to defeat the Germans on Lake Tanganyika during the First World War. Reprint.

At the start of World War One, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa. The British had no naval craft at all upon 'Tanganjikasee', as the Germans called it. This mattered: it was the longest lake in the world and of great strategic advantage. In June 1915, a force of 28 men was despatched from Britain on a vast journey. Their orders were to take control of the lake. To reach it, they had to haul two motorboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo. The 28 were a strange bunch -- one was addicted to Worcester sauce, another was a former racing driver -- but the strangest of all of them was their skirt-wearing, tattoo-covered commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Whatever it took, even if it meant becoming the god of a local tribe, he was determined to cover himself in glory. But the Germans had a surprise in store for Spicer-Simson, in the shape of their secret 'supership' the Graf von Gotzen . . . Unearthing new German and African records, the prize-winning author of The Last King of Scotland retells this most unlikely of true-life tales with his customary narrative energy and style. Fitzcarraldo meets Heart of Darkness, this is rich, vivid and flashmanesque in its appeal - military history at its most absorbing and entertaining

From the author of the Whitbread Award--winning The Last King of Scotland, comes a spellbinding tale of a town under siege in colonial Africa and a young woman who finds love and freedom in the midst of a devastating war. The year is 1899, and the South African town of Ladysmith is surrounded by Boer forces. For four long months bread is thickened with laundry starch and soldier's horses are killed for meat; daily bombings destroy homes and businesses, forcing the town's inhabitants into tunnels and makeshift shelters; and soldiers and townspeople alike are hideously wounded by flying shrapnel. As the world she knows collapses around her, Bella Kiernan finds the courage to escape from convention, to rebel against the political forces that threaten her homeland and to pursue her life's greatest romance. Ladysmith is a magnificent love story, a vivid portrait of war, and clear confirmation of Giles Foden's standing as a formidably talented novelist.

Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident: Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road in his red Maserati, has run over a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin, the dictator, in his obsession for all things Scottish, appoints him as his personal physician. And so begins a fateful dalliance with the central African leader whose Emperor Jones-style autocracy would transform into a reign of terror. In The Last King of Scotland Foden's Amin is as ridiculous as he is abhorrent: a grown man who must be burped like an infant, a self-proclaimed cannibalist who, at the end of his 8 years in power, would be responsible for 300,000 deaths. And as Garrigan awakens to his patient's baroque barbarism--and his own complicity in it--we enter a venturesome meditation on conscience, charisma, and the slow corruption of the human heart. Brilliantly written, comic and profound, The Last King of Scotland announces a major new talent.