Dhamma, the novel

After the genocide. The environment is heavy with the memory of conflict, rank with the spoils of aid and corruption, infused with exploitation, violence, impunity. Dhamma, the triptych.

-- When the girl was still very young two boys came. They selected her. There is a place where you will make a great deal of money they told her. And you won't pick up garbage. Here there is danger, but with us you are safe. -- ANGELS, a girl taken and trafficked, and the trio of misbegotten believers who make her redemption their duty. -- Girls talked about getting money, pay the debt. Get out. Freedom. But I knew. They knew. No getting out. The debt never goes away. --

Set in the razing of the rainforest, PIRATES, a tale of ecoterror.
-- Hornets. Black, armored, lurk above, pace the convoy. Soldier shadows, M16s at ready, wait grim in the open ports. In command chopper, shadow mounts heavy machine gun, barrel tipped earthward. Stinger and Hellfire hang primed. Wait . . . Live rightly. Fly headlong. Never any need to tell the other rangers or the police. No need to go to the army. Nothing to be done. It was understood. And now he hoped against all that he knew, that they - police, army, authority - would desist, not retaliate, not turn on him. He could go home, to his baby son, to his daughter grown to girlhood without him, precious daughter who needed him for her to grow up safe, to grow up free, fulfilled. To his wife, young, and beautiful as her children. All of them vulnerable. Prey. He hoped, he prayed. Flew forward, flew away. --

And PASSAGE, the story of a country girl in her quest for a better life in the city.
-- Two hundred . . . stood breathless in the rain. Someone choked. Someone cried. Someone said, 'They're illegal.' --

Dhamma.