Luminous Traitor

"As a long-time admirer of both Martin Duberman and Roger Casement, it is a delight to see one imagine his way into the life of the other. Casement was an extraordinary historical figure, too long ignored or belittled, but Duberman’s highly readable novel does him full justice.”—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

“Martin Duberman's stirring and vivid prose takes the reader into Roger Casement’s world and the haunting tragedies he confronted. From the Congo to Ireland, and across the imperial, postcolonial globe, the journey is amazing and fortifying.”—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt

"This remarkable and very readable book deserves a wide audience. The late Sir Roger Casement's wonderful and tragic life, from his first experiences in the Congo to his effective challenge to the brutal exploitation of indigenous people in the Putumayo region of the Amazon, is dramatized beautifully. Episodes including Casement's voice are persuasively achieved. During my lifetime Casement's homosexuality was aggressively denied by a Republican who refused to allow that an Irish patriot could be both such and also gay, but Casement's diaries are both convincing and representative of the sexual encounters of many gay men right up into my own lifetime. Here his sexuality is finally woven into the narrative naturally and compellingly."—David Norris, member of the Irish Senate and human rights activist  

“Duberman has chosen his ultimate flawed hero, a richly complex and contradictory figure of enduring importance, and superbly humanized him here. The result is a sweeping radical history of the successes and shortcomings of the 20th century told through the life and times of Roger Casement.”—John Howard, author of White Sepulchres and Men Like That