Tree for the Birds, A

Vernon R.L. Head offers a novel of profound political dances, capturing ideas within vast divides of separation, prompting a way for Africa to share solutions and leadership. Under the shadows of the tallest trees his story cries gently of the rachitic decrepitude that flickers on other continents inside suspense and the evilness of everyday lies. Set in the heart of Africa, this powerful story at the edge of damnation bends a reflection of all of us through the eyes of a birdwatcher who sees wings fly like escaping leaves on streams of eternal water and air for all. A Congolese boy becomes a young man shaped by the vast leaves held in the branches of tropical forests and truths, while all the time battling a ravaged world of globalised greed and death. Chrisnelt is a gardener of unusual genius: he learns from birds, insects and foreign weeds; and he counts raindrops falling from clouds, finding exquisite numbers that sing inside poems and proofs, screaming ultimately of the glorious and inevitable interconnection of peoples everywhere. Chrisnelt is guided by the ancient journey of water in his part of Africa: the constant flow to the ocean, and the rise back into the sky of mists, mentored by the deepest river on earth. And it is this powerful river – the Great Dancing Road – that leads him to answers on the other side of all our terrifying walls, to a place beyond sovereignties and the sick boundaries carving hideous borders across lands. Vernon RL Head studied architecture, winning national and international awards for design and creative thinking. He is past chairman of BirdLife South Africa, one of Africa’s biggest and most influential conservation organisations, and presently serves on the Advisory Board of the Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology (UCT). He is author of The Search for the Rarest Bird in the World and a poetry collection The Laughing Dove and other Poems. When not writing, he is either designing special buildings or travelling the world looking for the rarest birds.