Still Waters in Niger - Hardcover

Excerpts from more reviews
"Continuity and the binding of generations: Whether explored in remote, exotic Niger or in the confines of family life, these are Hill's abiding concerns in her elegantly evocative book."--Michael Frank, The Los Angeles Times

"The narrative follows, without overwriting, a meticulous course between poetry and prose...The prevailing spirit of Kathleen Hill's novel is not of pain, but of the kinship of life everywhere."--Robert Taylor, The Boston Globe

"The narrator's profound, unflashy observations about motherhood, the necessities and extravagances of survival, the effect of travel and dislocation and the peculiar beauty of the drought-struck land are the work of a brilliant essayist."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A beautiful book, with great lyric power and emotional resonance."--Mary Gordon

"Subtle, elegant, and beautifully written, this apparently quiet novel is in fact surprisingly subversive."--Andrea Barrett

"When I read this novel, I realized I'd been hoping to find it for decades. Here were qualities of beauty, seriousness, distinction, tenderness, and moral sense, conveyed in a prose as austere and lavish as the desert landscape it evokes."--Alfred Corn

"Here is a novel of fine social and cross-cultural observation, and too, of moral inwardness--a wonderfully knowing storyteller with a strong spiritual bent tells us so very much about idealism and its vicissitudes, parenthood and its possibilities."--Robert Coles

"A splendid piece of writing, charged with all the pain and beauty and mystery that Africa holds."--Eddy L. Harris

"If there are still books in a hundred years, I believe this will be among them."--Margot Livesey

"This book captures love and desperation in lives that are humanized through our recognition of some part of ourselfes--the holiness of shadows and how they measure the imaginitive landscape. Still Waters in Niger is a prayer for the characters, a prayer for us who render a semblence of care and understanding."--Yusef Komunyakaa

Kathleen Hill's fiction and essays have been published in Best American Short Stories 2000, Pushcart Prize XXV, Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner. The original publication of Still Waters in Niger (Northwestern,1999) was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was among the Notable Books of the Year in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. A French translation of Still Waters in Niger entitled Eaux Tranquilles was published by Editions Phebus in 2000 and was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger. Hill currently teaches in the Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.