For The Win
by Cory Doctorow, HarperCollins, $45, hardback
The author is no relation to the renowned EL Doctorow (Ragtime, The Waterworks, Billy Bathgate and other modern classics) but is quite famous in his own right. He's a writer, a columnist, an activist for a variety of causes, and has been
named - among other honours - as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. A Canadian, he now lives in London.
This is a dense novel, long and detailed, and shows what a committed activist Doctorow is, and how he sympathises with the exploited and the downtrodden. It's set in the industrial area of South China, where peasants work cruel hours as gold miners, earning little while the buyers in the West make big profits. And across in Mumbai the workers are being exploited too. Opposition comes from a surprising source - a group of committed teenagers from around the world, whose methods are even more surprising. It's highly imaginative, but the characters are well drawn and readers will empathise with them and their campaign.
The novel has become very topical since it was written, with China now experiencing industrial unrest from workers protesting pay and conditions.
