No Other Life
Encyclopedia
No Other Life is a novel
by Northern Irish
-Canadian writer Brian Moore
, published in 1993.
The novel is set in the future, on the fictional Caribbean
island of Ganae (based loosely on Haiti
). The story is told by Father Paul Michel, a Canadian missionary to Ganae, as a letter to himself about the life he has led. Father Paul supports a young priest, Jeannot, in his rebellion against Ganae's despotic ruler Uncle D.
Reviewing the novel for The Independent
, its critic Tom Adair said: "No Other Life dovetails questions of allegiance, tests of faith and the clash of cultures into a fiction of ideas tied at its heart to real lives lived. It is Moore's best work by far since Black Robe; at times it bites like a truly great novel. If pleasure indeed corrupts the soul, then this very novel is a 24 carat sin."
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Northern Irish
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
-Canadian writer Brian Moore
Brian Moore (novelist)
Brian Moore was a Northern Irish novelist and screenwriter who emigrated to Canada and later lived in the United States. He was acclaimed for the descriptions in his novels of life in Northern Ireland after the Second World War, in particular his explorations of the inter-communal divisions of The...
, published in 1993.
The novel is set in the future, on the fictional Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
island of Ganae (based loosely on Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
). The story is told by Father Paul Michel, a Canadian missionary to Ganae, as a letter to himself about the life he has led. Father Paul supports a young priest, Jeannot, in his rebellion against Ganae's despotic ruler Uncle D.
Reviewing the novel for The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, its critic Tom Adair said: "No Other Life dovetails questions of allegiance, tests of faith and the clash of cultures into a fiction of ideas tied at its heart to real lives lived. It is Moore's best work by far since Black Robe; at times it bites like a truly great novel. If pleasure indeed corrupts the soul, then this very novel is a 24 carat sin."