Near the Kenya-Sudan border, a team of international health program evaluators are abducted and force marched under a desert moon. Their pasts and presents — and those of their abductors — unravel before them. An orphan named Money is one of 66 too hungry to sleep. A rich public health doctor is gradually losing his points of attachment. A driver tastes the river of wealth through the vehicles he’s provided. Some escape; others are recaptured; a few are held at ransom. All are lured into schemes that often lead to unexpected results.

Because of Nothing at All is a story of choices, identity, and wealth, its richly drawn characters pitched into isolated and desperate circumstances. Born from the underbelly of the modern era of internationalism, Sunga’s vividly compelling novel depicts the inequities of a world gone awry, where the lines between madness and sanity, between justice and injustice, are blurred, if not erased.

Paul S. Sunga is the author of the novels The Lions and Red Dust, Red Sky. He has served as an international health consultant in more than a dozen countries in Africa and Asia. He teaches medical sciences in Vancouver.

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“Everything a novel should be, and then some. Visceral and lyrical, absurd and profound, beautiful and grotesque, unflinching and humane. In other words: human. So, if you’re trying to be a human, you need to read this book.”

Morgan Murray, author of <i>Dirty Birds</i>

“Distinguishing between those who wield power and those who have no power to wield — an imbalance that changes several times over the course of the narrative — Sunga’s novel makes clear that the markers of power range from bureaucracy to violence, from title to food, from names to naming, from Western medicine to local knowledge — and that everywhere power involves money. ... This novel may horrify you; it will engross you; it may even change the way you think about the world.”

<i>The British Columbia Review</i>

“Paul Sunga has penned a thoroughly absorbing read: a deep dive into capitalism and foreign aid that lays bare the limits of the latter in the face of the former, and the absurdities of both. Big-hearted, ambitious, and incredibly funny, Because of Nothing at All is the novel everyone needs to read.”

Sharon Bala, author of <i>The Boat People</i>

“Few readers will know the Turkana territory of Because of Nothing at All, but they should recognize the ‘dry wasteland’ that is always at the periphery of our own prosperity. Conjuring a swirl of heat, dust, corrupted bodies, and lost dreams, Paul Sunga writes with a commanding narrative voice. His transparent and visceral prose lets us glimpse the uncertainty at the heart of much that we call evil.”

Michael Kaan, author of <i>The Water Beetles</i>

“It begins like a thriller, but quickly shows itself as a profound story of impossible choices, identity, disparity and injustice. This is a vividly compelling novel that shows the world as a place of justifiable madness amidst blurred and crumbling lines.”

<i>Atlantic Books Today</i>