Nicholas Coghlan arrived in Bogata in 1997. A political officer for the Canadian government, it was his responsibility to report on Columbia's complex civil conflict, lobby the Colombian authorities on human rights, and provide visible moral support and other assistance to the victims of the war. Soon after he arrived it became apparent that he could not fulfill these functions from the relative peace and security of Bogata and he found himself traveling to remote and sometimes dangerous locations rarely visited by outsiders - the coca fields of Putumayo, the swamps of the Darien Gap, the...

Penned by the first Canadian diplomat ever to be posted to Khartoum, "Far in the Waste Sudan" offers a unique and privileged view of Sudan at an epochal moment in its history.

The first Canadian diplomat to be posted to war-torn Sudan, Nicholas Coghlan was a natural choice to lead Canada's representation in the new Republic of South Sudan soon after the country was founded in 2011. In late 2013, Coghlan and his wife Jenny were in the capital, Juba, when it erupted in gunfire and civil war pitted one half of the army against the other, Vice-President Machar against President Kiir, and the Nuer tribe against the Dinka. This action-focused narrative, grounded by accounts of meetings with key leaders and travels throughout the dangerous, impoverished hinterland of...