<p>On an island paradise somewhere in the South Pacific, Managua--the only native who can read or write--is busily translating <em>Hamlet</em> into pidgin English when a plane interrupts his noble work. Strapping on his false leg, he makes his way to the landing strip to greet the unexpected arrival: William Hardt, a young American lawyer driven by his misguided ambition to win reparations for the island's inhabitants. </p><p>Hardt is not the first white outsider to pay a visit; the British came earlier, bringing their language, the small pigs that run wild in the jungle, and Shakespeare . . . and the Americans followed with guns, land mines, and Coca-Cola. But in this place of riotously logical ritual, Hardt's determined quest to do good could make him the most devastating visitor of all. </p><p>Profoundly moving and achingly funny, <em>One Big Damn Puzzler</em> brilliantly explores the collision of the twenty-first century with unsullied pagan reality--and establishes John Harding as one of the most imaginative contemporary chroniclers of the human condition.</p>