The Great Divide

The Great Divide is an epic book about the construction of the Panama Canal. It focuses on the people who helped build it and whose lives were directly affected, introducing us to a beautiful and unforgettable cast of characters.

Francisco, a fisherman all his life, is outraged with his son, Omar, for joining the effort he feels is swallowing his country. Ada, a sixteen-year-old from Barbados, is a stowaway who wants to earn enough money to help her sister afford life-saving surgery. Dr. John Oswald has come from the mountains of Tennessee to eradicate malaria. He witnesses a young woman (Ada) saving a boy who had collapsed (Omar) and he hires her on the spot to nurse his ailing wife. This incredible work of historical fiction shed so much light on a number of things: that Panama was originally part of Columbia and that so many people from all over the Caribbean, South America, and Europe flocked to Panama to make money yes, but also to be part of what at that time was the most remarkable feat of engineering yet to date. 

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