Changes

|title=In Darkness

|author=Nick Lake

|reviewer=Jill Murphy

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=352

|publisher=Bloomsbury

|date=January 2012

|isbn=1408824183

}}

Shorty is lying in the rubble of the great Haitian earthquake of 2010. If he's not rescued soon, he will die. Shorty is from Site Soley, the sprawling slum of Port-au-Prince. After the murder of his father and abduction of his twin sister, Shorty has allowed himself to fall further and further into the slum's gang culture. But Route 9 isn't all about drug-dealing and gun-running - it's also about feeding the poor and educating the children. And Shorty has a great deal to teach his readers, as he recounts his life while waiting to die.

I thought it was a wonderful book, full of cultural and political awareness and a deep sense of humanity. The historical parts were fascinating and, now I know about Toussaint l'Ouverture, I can see why Nick Lake feels his achievements should be better known. His story is incredibly powerful and heartbreaking, too. But Shorty's tale of Site Soley and Route 9 is also powerful and heartbreaking and it's happening now. Readers, old and young alike, will come away from ''In Darkness'' with a meaningful understanding of what it is to be Haitian. And what it is like to have the world fall down on you.

[[Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman]] also mixes a little bit of magic realism in a story about gang culture - this time in the UK. The Haitian view of the magic between twins is also a theme in [[White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi]].

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