Paula Nangle--The Leper Compound

In her arresting debut novel, Nangle uses the coming-of-age story of Colleen, a young, conscientious Rhodesian girl, to examine the tumultuous transition from English-ruled Rhodesia to African-ruled Zimbabwe. Of the book, Nobel prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee says, “The Leper Compound succeeds remarkably in giving a sense of how, during the last years of white rule in southern Africa, the daily experience of ordinary people was interfused with the larger historical drama.” Nangle was the child of missionaries in South Africa and currently lives in Benton Harbor, MI.