The Other Side of Desire

Daniel Bergner is drawn to people, and to stories, that illuminate the struggle we all face to make our lives meaningful. From living with convicts sentenced to life in a tough American prison to travelling across Sierra Leone in the wake of its brutal civil war, he has always been drawn to those who live at the extremes of experience. Soldiers of Light, his book on Sierra Leone, won the Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Award and a Lettres-Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage. It was hailed by the Guardian as 'Riveting, elegiac... genius' and by the Sunday Times as 'a rare book indeed ... one in which both author and reader are irrevocably changed'. He writes for the New York Times Magazine and has spent a number of year with the subjects of this book.