If ever there was a need for a single definition of the novel’s function, it may well be to establish an architecture around characters that leads them directly to unique moral quandaries. These shorts of choices are ultimately what drives some of the greatest novels. 

And what better framework than war to create situations that lead characters towards real perplexity? After all, it consists of two sides fighting for what both believe to be right, with outcomes involving ruin, destruction and death. 

Now throw in the fact that the novel may or may not be based on true events, perhaps embellished by the novelist’s pen but ultimately rooted in history, and you find that the membrane between fact and fiction becomes very porous indeed.

My guest today is the novelist James MacManus who is a former journalist, a correspondent for the Guardian in Africa and the Middle East. Currently, he’s also the Managing Director of The TLS (The Times Literary Supplement), an august weekly literary review.

During his time in Africa, he covered the Zimbabwe War for Independence, and his sixth novel “Love in a Lost Land”, is based on these experiences in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, at a time of guerrilla warfare. It’s a very authentic read which looks at both sides of the conflict and features a love story that bridges those factions. The setting brings to life the work of a journalist in a perilous environment and the plot created moral quandaries that were reminiscent, to me, of Graham Greene novels.

A list of books mentioned in the interview: