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Writer Tracy Kidder’s new book, “Strength in What Remains,” deals with the travails of one African refugee — and the depths of the human soul, the capacity for good and evil.

Deogratias –- a young man from the obscure country of Burundi –- arrives in New York with nothing. No English, sleeping in Central Park. Within two years, he is attending Columbia University.

Kidder’s story goes further, though. It takes us back into the horrors of ethnic violence in Burundi. And as we stagger through the atrocities with Deo, we find ourselves asking questions about what we might have done — whether we would have survived — and how we would live afterward.

This Hour, On Point: an odyssey out of Africa — and war.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Guests:

Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction writer. He’s author of such books as “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” “The Soul of a New Machine,” and “Home Town.” His new book is “Strength in What Remains.” You can listen to Kidder’s 2003 On Point interview, which includes guest Dr. Paul Farmer.

Sarah Broom, executive director of Village Health Works, a medical organization based in Burundi that is featured in Tracy Kidder’s new book.

Read an excerpt of Tracy Kidder’s new book, “Strength in What Remains.”

Dambisa Moyo

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The world has poured aid into post-colonial Africa. And Africa remains overwhelmingly poor.

Now, one young African economist is speaking up to say, “stop the aid.” No more concerts for Africa. No more heartfelt appeals.

Dambisa Moyo — from Zambia by way of Harvard, Oxford, and Goldman Sachs — says tough market discipline is what African nations need, not handouts. She argues that the more than $1 trillion in aid that’s gone to Africa has not helped the continent, but put it on life support. Stifled entrepreneurship. Fed corruption. Made Africa’s leaders beholden to the West.

She’s been on the road with her controversial message. The pushback has been loud and strong.

This hour, On Point: We’re debating aid for Africa, with Dambisa Moyo.

You can join the conversation. Could Bono be wrong? What about Dambisa Moyo? How do you see aid to Africa?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from London is Dambisa Moyo, economist and author of the new book “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.” She is former head of economic research and strategy for sub-Saharan Africa at Goldman Sachs and a former World Bank consultant.

From New York we’re joined by John McArthur, chief executive of the Millennium Promise, created to help achieve the United Nation’s eight Millennium Development goals, which include cutting global poverty in half by 2015.  He oversees the Millennium Villages project, which helps more than 400,000 people in rural communities across 10 countries in Africa to become economically viable. He is also research associate at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Click here to listen to the show

On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the commanding officer of a U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser monitors the pirated motor vessel Faina off the coast of Somalia while one of his helicopters provides aerial surveillance. (US Navy photo)

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Somali pirates don’t joke around.

Off one of the busiest sea lanes in the world, where oil-tanker traffic and a whole lot more flow to the Suez Canal, they have been taking ship after ship this year. Boarding bloody if need be, commandeering the bridge, holding crew and cargo ransom for big money.

Ten days ago they hit a deadly jackpot. A Ukrainian freighter stuffed to the gunwhales with heavy weaponry. Soviet tanks. Grenage launchers. Ammo.

Now U.S. warships have the captive ship cornered. A Soviet frigate is on the way. But the problem is spreading.

This hour, On Point: Pirates, global order fraying off the Horn of Africa, and a high seas crisis on the world stage.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He joined us earlier from an island near the coast of Somalia.

Joining us from London is Roger Middleton, consultant researcher for the Africa program at Chatham House in London. He’s the author of “Piracy in Somalia: Threatening Global Trade, Feeding Local War.”

Joining us from New York City is J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University and a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy in Washington, D.C. He writes a weekly column for the New Atlanticist about African security issues. His Sept. 29 column was “The Challenge of Somali Piracy.”

Joining us from Bahrain is Lt. Nathan Christensen, deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.

Uwem Akpan (Photo: Comfort Ukpong, Little, Brown & Company)

The news from Africa can sound as old and hard as time.

But what if you were a child, in the midst of it? In the midst of loving and hoping, and seeing and growing up … and living fresh through hunger and killing, genocide in your parents’ bedroom, glue-sniffing with your mom on Christmas Day.

Nigerian writer and Jesuit priest Uwem Akpan’s new short story collection brings us Africa, shatteringly, through the eyes of children facing slavery, fear, death. It is a revelation.

This hour, On Point: A new voice from Africa. Uwem Akpan and “Say You’re One of Them.”

-Tom Ashbrook

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Guest:

Uwem Akpan, Nigerian-born writer, author of the new short story collection “Say You’re One of Them.” You can read and listen to an excerpt from the book at NPR.org. And you can listen to the song “Agbalagba,” by Grammy Award-winning world music star Angelique Kidjo, inspired by “Say You’re One of Them.”

The travel posters from Kenya are all “Out of Africa” beauty, safari paradise shots and handsome Masai tribesmen with their red robes and spears. And for decades, Kenya was held up as East Africa’s great hope for democracy and development.

But in the last month, after a disputed — observers say stolen — presidential election, the “great hope” has descended into bloody tribal reprisals and ethnic cleansing.

It’s bad for the country, the region, and for U.S. hopes of a bulwark against terrorism in East Africa.

This hour, On Point: we go to a shaken Kenya, and the roots of the crisis.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Jonathan Ledgard, Nairobi-based Africa correspondent for The Economist magazine.

Kenda Mutongi, associate professor of history and chair of the Africana Studies department at Williams College, she grew up in the village of Maragoli, near Kisumu, Kenya. She is the author of “Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya” (2007).

Steve Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.