Norbert Zongo's The Parachute Drop is the story of a corrupt African dictator who betrays his people for personal gain at the behest of neocolonial French powers. In his preface, Zongo describes the torture he underwent for writing this novel. In 1997, Zongo was assassinated by agents of Blaise Compaoré, the president of Burkina Faso, for his investigative journalism along with his brother and two other friends. His assassination led to a period of intense unrest that ultimately led to the fall of Compaoré's regime of corruption and impunity. Christopher Wise wrote the introduction and translated the novel from French.