Product Description

Combining elements of the thriller noir with comedy, this novel is based on the macabre events of Idi Amin's regime, "The Last King of Scotland" being one of the many titles which the tyrant bestowed on himself. It is also about a young Scottish doctor who becomes involved in Amin's administration.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83974 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
No, we're not talking Bonnie Prince Charlie here. The title character of Giles Foden's debut novel, The Last King of Scotland, is none other than Idi Amin, the former dictator of Uganda. Told from the viewpoint of Nicholas Garrigan, Amin's personal physician, the novel chronicles the hell that was Uganda in the 1970s. Garrigan, the only son of a Scots Presbyterian minister, finds himself far away from Fossiemuir when he accepts a post with the Ministry of Health in Uganda. His arrival in Kampala coincides with the coup that leads to President Obote's overthrow and Idi Amin Dada's ascendancy to power. Garrigan spends only a few days in the capital city, however, before heading out to his assignment in the bush. But a freak traffic accident involving Amin's sports car and a cow eventually brings the good doctor into the dictator's orbit; a few months later, Garrigan is recalled from his rural hospital and named personal physician to the president. Soon enough, Garrigan finds himself caught between his duty to his patient and growing pressure from his own government to help them control Amin.

From Nicholas Garrigan's catbird seat, Foden guides us through the horrors of Amin's Uganda. It would be simple enough to make the dictator merely monstrous, but Foden defies expectation, rendering him appealing even as he terrifies. The doctor "couldn't help feeling awed by the sheer size of him and the way, even in those unelevated circumstances, he radiated a barely restrained energy...I felt--far from being the healer--that some kind of elemental force was seeping into me." And Garrigan makes a fine stand-in for Conrad's Marlow as he travels up a river of blood from Naiveté to horrified recognition of his own complicity. As if this weren't enough, Foden also treats us to a finely drawn portrait of Africa in all its natural, political and social complexity. The Last King of Scotland makes for dark but compelling reading. --Alix Wilber, Amazon.com

Review
Newly arrived in Uganda, young doctor Nicholas Garrigan takes up his post at a chaotic medical centre and becomes Idi Amin's physician and confidant. Increasingly horrified yet fascinated by Amin's outrageous behaviour, Garrigan finds himself becoming dangerously close to the centre of a corrupt and brutal regime. The author provides a convincing portrayal of a tyrant in this darkly humorous novel. Winner of the 1998 Whitbread First Novel Prize. (Kirkus UK)

A remarkable debut novel by British journalist Foden (The Guardian), who describes - in the best Conradian tones - an idealistic young physician's descent into the maelstrom of Idi Amin's Uganda. In a remote and wintry comer of Scotland, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan is trying to look back - through the snow piling up outside his window - on his days in the tropics. The son of a Scots Presbyterian minister, Nick grew up in the wee town of Fossiemuir and saw very little of the world beyond Edinburgh before passing his medical exams and accepting a post with the Ministry of Health that sent him to Uganda in the early 1970s. This, then, "is a story of various strange happenings in Central Africa, happenings which involved the author, Nicholas Garrigan, in a professional and private capacity." And how: Nick landed in Uganda just as Idi Amin was transforming his Emperor Jones-style autocracy into a full-fledged reign of terror, and Nick not only survived the bloodletting but rose (through the typical succession of circumstantial flukes that controls these things) to become Amin's personal physician. From his place at the Emperor's right hand, he witnessed all the absurdities, barbarisms, and venalities symbolizing much of postcolonial Africa -tribal wars, the scapegoating of Asian "profiteers," palace intrigues, assassinations. There was one horror, though, that Nick couldn't be prepared for: he actually came to like Amin as a person. This affection makes for difficulties when, in the novel's foreground action, British operatives try to enlist him in a plot to poison the dictator: his refusal to take part in the scheme makes for even more trouble after Amin falls from power and Nick must seek asylum in a Britain that now views him as an alien functionary. In the end, of course, Nick comes to see that he has been an alien from the start - a recognition that's little consolation but no minor achievement. Lurid and delightful, written with wit and real maturity. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
Combining elements of the thriller noir with comedy, this novel is based on the macabre events of Idi Amin's regime, "The Last King of Scotland" being one of the many titles which the tyrant bestowed on himself. It is also about a young Scottish doctor who becomes involved in Amin's administration.

Customer Reviews

Scary and Macabre - a must read
A slow start perhaps, but for me that worked well. We were not straight into the thick of the Amin regime but Foder works on the charcater development of the Dr and how he becomes entwined with the Amin Regime. This for me worked well; it gave an insight into the mind and make up of the Dr and how this perhaps left him still involved with Amin right up until his downfall.
The brutality of the dictator was well scripted and is proof again that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutly.
It loses a star for me only in at times I was struggling to understand why the Dr stayed to the end when he had seen so much and heard so many brutal stories, but perhaps this was in the make up of the man and just fear for himself. He was perhaps a coward.
A worthy read.

not a patch on the amazing screen version.
i watched the movie before the Oscar glory as i judged its trailer to be promising enough. and god it was , a lot more than that.
therefore, i safely bought the book on a good price to boost, but from the beginning i could sense that the affection and attraction i once felt for the character on screen wasn't happening with the original writing. what a shame. the book simply was too detailed when it came to description of africa which i don't care for, and dr carrighan is just not that enthrilling a chap. the relationship he seemed to have really had with Idi was more intense/stronger in the movie, which was what made it a lot more compealling.
i forced my self to read til the end, just in case...... well, you know what i am going to say....

Fantastic book, I was gripped from the first page
I enjoyed this book so much I've just gone out and bought all Giles Foden's other books which I plan to read in the coming weeks. Last King of Scotland had a bit of everything in it - history, suspense, horror, romance, comedy and was an extremely well written book. I read it in one night refusing to go to sleep until I got to the end and it was totally worth losing sleep over. Foden sets the scene really well, you can hear, taste and smell Uganda on every page, wonderful stuff! I want more though, why did the book have to end?!