Blood and Gifts - by J T Rogers (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

My God, Russian soldiers being shot with Chinese bullets. Sometimes the world is so beautiful.

It's 1981. As the Soviet army burns its way through Afghanistan, CIA operative Jim Warnock is sent to try to halt its bloody progress, beginning a secret spy war behind the official hostilities. Jim and his counterparts in the KGB and the British and Pakistani secret services wrestle with ever-shifting personal and political loyalties. With the outcome of the entire Cold War at stake, Jim and a larger-than-life Afghan warlord decide to place their trust in each other.

Spanning a decade and playing out in Washington, D.C., Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Blood and Gifts is a sweeping, often shockingly funny epic set against one of the greatest historical events of recent history, the repercussions of which continue to shape our world.

Review Quotes

"It grips entirely . . . Imagine that John le Carré collaborated with . . . a disaffected renegade from The West Wing." --Libby Purves, The Times (London)

"Rogers is that rarest of creatures: an American playwright with a social conscience and the desire to make damning connections between human psychology and ideology." --David Cote, Time Out New York

"Anyone who reads the news from Afghanistan and wonders how we got into this mess in the first place would do well to see this outstanding new work." --Fiona Mountford, London Evening Standard

"Sly, funny, informative and heartbreaking . . . This is, in every sense, a great play." --Nina Caplan, Time Out London

About the Author

J. T. Rogers is the author of The Overwhelming, Madagascar, White People, Murmuring in a Dead Tongue, and other plays. His works have been produced in London by the National Theatre, Tricycle Theatre and Theatre 503; toured the UK with Out of Joint; and been heard on BBC Radio. In New York City his plays have been seen at the Roundabout Theatre, the SPF Play Festival and commercially Off Broadway; they have also been staged in Australia, Canada, Israel, Germany, and throughout the United States. His essays have appeared in The Independent, New Statesman, and American Theatre. In New York City, Rogers is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a member of the Dramatists Guild. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.