The Constant Gardener by John le Carré is an unusual novel in many respects. Combining the suspense and thrill of the espionage novel for which le Carré is justly famous, it exhibits, perhaps for the first time, the author’s deep-rooted humanism especially at the suffering of the less privileged living in the Third World countries among whom Africa ranks first. Though the novel could have easily slipped into some sort of sentimentality, le Carré has supported it with a mass of well-researched details which go to make up, with a great deal of authenticity, this narrative of exploitation and betrayal and blind profiteering from the sufferings of others. It lays bare the machinations and structures of monolithic corporations which manage to penetrate even such edifices like the WHO. The power of these global corporations transcend geographical boundaries and in today’s world of commerce they wield a power greater than that of governments and even policies of governments are made manipulable by the nexus that exists between the politicians, bureaucrats and the businessmen. This is a novel especially relevant to any Third World country which is dependent on the largesse of the developed nations.
KEYWORDS
Pharmaceutical, corporate greed, TB, Third World, dypraxa
Though Edward Said in his Orientalism and Frantz Fanon in his The Wretched of the Earth have discussed extensively the way the West has resorted to cultural and racial stereotyping of the East, it is not often an author