The Last White Man (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9789933916497)

"Great and first in many things, Charleston. And so, I'll give you the honor to conquer before all."
Leo Quinn, the last White man in the New Confederacy
Charleston, 2049
It's going to make you feel uneasy and more than likely offended, yet it's also a story worth reading because it has something important to say.
Review by Brooks Kohler on Laptiast.com (full review below the book description).
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Leo Quinn, a Black NASA expert invents a ray that can change the skin color of White people. In a world where White supremacists have taken control and deported Black people, Quinn uses his invention to punish those who remained silent in the face of injustice. When he successfully tests the ray on himself and turns White, he broadcasts it to Charleston, South Carolina, causing a transformation of skin color that leads to the downfall of the New Confederate States. Quinn becomes the last White man in the South, hunted by the FBI for his invention's cure.
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Review by Brooks Kohler on Laptiast.com.

The Last White Man by Fadhil Qaradaghi (book review)

It's going to make you feel uneasy and more than likely offended, yet it's also a story worth reading because it has something important to say. That is the way I describe The Last White Man by Fadhil Qaradaghi.

The title of the story alone is enough to cause a person to pause while browsing for a book. Imagine what it felt like for me to receive an email asking I beta read it. As a white man, it made me a bit uncomfortable because I'm not sure if it's socially acceptable for me to say I enjoyed the story or not, but being truthful about it, I did enjoy it. I found it interesting, shocking, offensive, disturbing, and causing me to think. I also enjoyed the structure of the story. It reminded of the kind of writing found in science fiction books of the 1950s, a style both linear and focused on the main character. There's very little bouncing from character to character as one passes from chapter to chapter and being this way makes it easy to read, follow, and finish in a short span of time.

I don't like to give away plots even though I personally feel spoilers help stories gain attention. I have on occasion purchased books and movies based upon spoilers, yet out of respect for authors I beta read for, I won't share a lot of details about a story I review.

In the case of The Last White Man by Fadhil Qaradaghi, the story takes place in a futuristic United States where African Americans living in a new Southern Confederacy are abused and deported to Africa. Seeing this happen, a black scientist seeks revenge by creating a device to turn white people black and black people white without their consent and in doing so sets into motion a chain of consequences he himself is unsure of.

There is language and scenes of violence in this story that caused me to put the book down at times. It's not an overbearingly graphic book, but the violence carried out is brutal and captured from the inhumane pages of America's history. If you know about Colonial America and America's Civil War, you will sense the history the story contains.

I do want to add I don't feel the author sat out with any ill intent in writing the story because the story is about trying to show how wrong it is to treat others badly based upon the color of their skin. The story wants the reader to have empathy for others and think seriously about the implications even if the science used for the transformation is fantastical or impossible.

Author: Fadhil Qaradaghi
ISBN-10: 9933916491
ISBN-13: 9789933916497
Publisher: Zagros Books
Language: English
Published: 05/05/2023
Pages: 156
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.39lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.36d