***REGION 2: Eastern Africa II

If you have not read the information on the master thread regarding the intent of these regional threads, please do this first.

***2. Eastern Africa II: Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda

One of my favorite novels of 2010 was Matigari by the Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, which was based on an African folk tale and is set in an unnamed postcolonial country. My review of it is here.

I reviewed the novel Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste for Belletrista last year, a very good novel based on fictionalized events during the Ethiopian Civil War:

http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue4/reviews_5.php

Coming to Birth by Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye (Kenya), 1986

A young girl with little education comes to the big city to join her new husband. With the adjustment to the new life come disappointments, unfulfilled expectations, silent recriminations. The girl forges ahead, matures and develops a strong feminist character, without her seeming to be aware of her transformation. Along all this, she becomes involved in very personal ways in her country's birth pains without her seeking it. Set during the tumultuous last years of the Emergency in Kenya through its early period as an independent state, this is the story of Pauline, a simple Luo girl arriving in Nairobi in 1956,
who slowly but steadily comes into awareness of a world beyond the walls of her tiny home and the
silences of her marriage.

There is nothing in this book that immediately grabs the reader, it's the kind which slowly grows on you. It felt more like uncovering one layer and discovering there was another below, and yet another. I found the book moving but not sentimental, providing plenty of food for thought but not preachy. Macgoye also juxtaposes well the life story of an ordinary couple with the great events happening then, neither story overwhelming the narrative.

-->3 kidzdoc:
I am reading Matigari at the moment. It is absolutely outstanding. I had not heard of it before I bought it, despite being keen on Ngugi. It is 'only' his 8th most popular work on LT, and possibly his least popular novel (in terms of LT readers). It really deserves a higher profile among his works.

If you liked the themes of Matigari, could I recommend Chaka by the Sesotho wroter Thomas Mofolo. It is a darker work, in terms of the central character, but still has a pseudo-Christian messianic feel about it.

Also currently reading Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o but Wizard of the Crow. I've had this book for about 2 years but never got around to starting it. So far (only about a 1/3 way in) it is pretty amazing.

Currently reading Daoud Hari's The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Dafur. I've read one other about Dafur and didn't get the depth of information that I'm getting in this one about the social, political, and religious issues that are part and parcel of the genocide of Dafur.

#6 Missed this earlier, but Wizard of the Crow got me reading a lot of Ngugi. It's his best though, I think.

Matigari by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Kenya, originally published in Gikuyi in 1987, English translation 1990

Although I've been a Ngugi fan since reading Wizard of the Crow a few years ago, I hadn't heard of Matigari until Andy/depressaholic and Darryl/kidzdoc highly recommended it here on LT. A satire, an allegory, and a fable, it tells the tale of Matigari which means "the patriots who survived the bullets," who emerges out of the forests after an unseen but epic fight with the colonizers to find that his unnamed but now postcolonial country is under the thumb of the former freedom fighters in league with western corporations and the military, particularly by His Excellency Ole Excellence, the Minister for Truth and Justice, and the specialists in Parrotology. Matigariis searching for his house, the house he built but that the colonizer lived in before the and the colonizer and the colonizer's African flunky fled into the forest to fight.

In mythical fashion, and in accordance with oral tradition, this story is repeated in various forms throughout the book as Matigari arouses the people, is hunted and jailed by the powers that be, and struggles to promote the people's right to own the products of their labor and live in freedom. This is not a straightforward tale. Time is fluid and Matigari is mysterious -- sometimes old, sometimes young, sometimes even the resurrection of Jesus. All in all, the novel is a compelling combination of a traditional form with modern literary styles and a vivid exploration of disillusionment, hope, and the necessity to continue the struggle.

Just finished Abyssinian Chronicles, which was big, interesting but not an easy read. It is set in and about Uganda from the years of Idi Amin to late 80s or so. The country's history is told along with and often reflected to a family history combined with a coming-of-age story.

Wizard of the Crow will be my next read -- one of the two books I had decided to read when I started read African literature more than a year ago.

I hope you enjoy Wizard of the Crow as much as I did. It got me started on Ngugi, and to some extent on African writing more broadly.

10/11 - I just picked up Wizard of the Crow.

Is anyone aware of any literature about the Mathare Slums of Kenya? I'm looking for novels set in Mathare.

A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Kenya 1967

"Uhuru" means "freedom" in Swahili and, as this book starts, Uhuru, Kenya's day of independence from British colonial rule, is four days away. In a village in the Kenyan highlands, and in a neighboring small town, people prepare for the great day while several characters reflect on and converse about their experiences during the Emergency, the struggle for freedom that the British savagely attempted to put down and called the Mau Mau uprising. This is a novel about the aftermath of war and colonial rule.

Ngũgĩ explores the choices people make in times of conflict and, above all, betrayal -- personal, political, romantic, sexual. He is a wonderful story-teller, creating vivid, troubled characters, dramatizing the brutality and horror of the Emergency (imprisonment, torture, murder, destruction of villages) as well as the nature of life in a small village, and bringing excitement and suspense to the novel. This is all done so well that the small amount of history review and politics didn't bother me. It is an early work of Ngũgĩ's, but much more complex and interesting than his earlier The River Between.

SUDAN



The Wedding of Zein by Tayib Salih (1969, Sudanese)

While at the PEN festival in NYC in April, I attended the "Global Book Swap" panel discussion where authors recommended books to the audience. This book was Leila Aboulela's choice.

The Wedding of Zein is a novella, set in a town in the Sudan, and tells the story of how the "village idiot"got to marry the most eligible young woman in the town (and she agrees to marry him!). Immediately upon being born, it is said, the infant Zein did not cry but burst out laughing. He was deformed, mostly toothless, but was remarkably strong and had a notorious appetite. He always made the women laugh, and often fell in love with one of the local girls, who would then promptly marry a suitable groom. In this way he became a predictor of who would marry next.

As the story opens a rumor is going around the village that Zein is going to be married. It is met with much incredulity. And thus the story of how Zein comes to marry the most beautiful girl in the village begins.

Told with a style with oral story-telling rhythms, this is a delightful folk tale. Zein is irresistible, and the village - well, a small town is a small town anywhere in the world! Readers of Jamilia by Chinghiz Aitmatov and Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst, two other "folk tale" books I've recommended, will also enjoy this.

I should mention that there were two short stories included in this book with the novella, both of which were very good.

I also finished The Wedding of Zein yesterday, and all I have to add to above is that in addition to being a delightful tale, The Wedding story also cleverly tells us about the diversity of the life in the village. There are different people and different groups of people that all have different relation to Zein and different attitudes (apart from the astonisment which is common) to his wedding.

The other stories are quite different in tone from the Wedding.

The first one is about an unnamed village (again) beside the Nile. The village 'has always been there' as has the doum tree at the outskirts of the village. The life of the village revolves around the mythical tree: it is the local landmark, they go to the tree when they are ill, they go there when they get well, and they dream about it in their dreams.

The times they are a changing, though. The progress is persistently trying to come to the village -- despite the sand flies and the horse flies (big as lambs) that infest the region, and despite the opposition of the villagers.

The old man telling the tale of the Tree and the Village to the latest harbinger of 'better future' has, in the end, sadly, admit that the time is coming when the people no longer see the tree in their dreams. And that is when the good old times are over.

Handful of Dates is a brief story about loss of innocence. Young boy who has spent more time with his grandfather than with his father sees the grandfather is not just a nice old man. Elegant, effective and economical.

Before this one I read the Season of Migration to the North by the same author which is also good, but not as good as the Wedding... the writing is good, but some parts of the story have dated more. The Season is about the conflict of the North and the South -- culturally, personally, destructively.

To follow up on post #7:



58. The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari

Daoud Hari is a Zaghawa tribesman born in a village in Darfur, who, at an early age, showed an aptitude for languages. As an adult he lived abroad for a while, but was remanded to Sudan after violating a visa requirement. Shortly after he returns to his village, it is attacked and destroyed by one of the militia groups that terrorized the Darfur regions throughout much of the last decade. Members of Hari’s family are killed and others are separated. Hari decides to join the line of displaced persons heading for a refugee camp in Chad and walks with the others to the border. Once in Chad, his facility with languages soon lands him jobs as a translator for reporters eager to enter Darfur and report on the atrocities being committed. Hari was exceptional at safely leading reporters through the most dangerous parts of Darfur, giving them a firsthand look at the horrors destroying his country. His knowledge of languages, his charming personality, and his daring helped reporters from organizations like The New York Times, the BBC, and the United Nations acquire the evidence needed to declare the conflict in Darfur genocide.

Although a bit dated due to recent political developments, I still think The Translator has relevance. Hari’s experiences as a translator bring to mind stories coming out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places where the U.S. is relying on native translators, drivers, and facilitators of meetings and interviews. This memoir captivated me because of the edge-of-your-seat stories and Hari’s open, friendly style of writing. Despite the tragedies he describes, he is optimistic about the fate of his country and trusting that people are basically good. I have read some books about Sudan and Darfur that left me emotional exhausted and depressed, but this one left me hopeful. For that reason alone, I’m glad I picked it up.

Links by Nuruddin Farah. Farah now a citizen of USA has traveled back to his home country-Somalia- many times. This is a novel whose theme is the political uprisings in Somalia. Gangs compete for control of Mogadiscio.

The characters are well drawn and their is a mounting suspwnse to the tale. It will give the reader a first hand look at the madness of war and the chaos of this once civilized city.

worth rading for its insight into this war torn country.

KENYA

The Broken Word by Adam Foulds



This is a powerful and damning epic poem about the brutality inflicted by British colonialists on ordinary Kenyans and freedom fighters during the Mau Mau Uprising, also known as the Kenyan Emergency, which took place there from 1952-1960 and cost the lives of tens of thousands of Kenyans and 200 colonialists. The main character, Tom, is a British lad on the cusp of adulthood, whose father volunteers his services after members of the Mau Mau resistance group are reported to have savagely murdered other Kenyans who refused to take the oath to fight against the colonialists, or die in the process. Those suspected of being Mau Mau fighters are hunted down and shot like wild animals, or, worse yet, are captured, tortured and forced to work under the most inhumane conditions until they die of starvation or injury. Tom, encouraged by fellow colonialists and his family, is quickly transformed from a reluctant observer to an active participant in the worsening brutality.

As the poem closes, Tom appears to have returned to a more normal existence, as he enters university and falls in love with another student. However, we are able to glimpse the subtle behaviors and beliefs that will surely haunt Tom and those nearest to him throughout the remainder of his life.

The Broken Word won the Costa Award for Poetry in 2008 and the Somerset Maugham Award in 2009, and deservedly so. This is easily one of the best poetry collections I've read, and its deeply moving passages deserve to be read by anyone with an interest in the Kenyan independence movement.

I have just started Rules of the Wild by Francesca Marciano, which takes place in Kenya.

KENYA

Weep Not, Child by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Ngũgĩ's powerful debut novel about colonial Kenya was released in 1964 while he was a student at the University of Leeds, and was the first book published in English by an East African. The story is centered around Njoroge, a young Kenyan boy within a loving but impoverished household who is overjoyed when his father Ngotho is able to pay for him to attend school, an opportunity that was not made available to his older brothers. Ngotho is barely able to provide for his family as he works for Mr Howlands, a white landowner who views the Africans who work for him as savages who are barely more useful or worthy of his attention than his farm animals. The property that Ngotho and his family lives on is owned by Jacobo, a wealthier black Kenyan who is supportive of the Mr Howlands and other colonialists and oppresses and torments Ngotho and other landless natives.

Ngotho is challenged by an older son to take a stand against his employer and participate in the nationwide strike against white rule, subsistence wages, and laws designed by the colonialists to restrict most black Kenyans from advancement. The strike is brutally repressed, and Ngotho and his family suffer as a result. The failure of the strike leads to the Mau Mau uprising, in which nationalists commit acts of violence against colonialists, and black Kenyans who do not agree with their oath of loyalty. Njoroge is caught in the middle of the struggle, as he does not take the oath of loyalty but is opposed to colonialists and the natives that benefit from their rule. His older brothers join the freedom fighters, as the conflict
threatens the lives Njoroge and the other members of his family, and he is forced to decide whether to continue with his education or take a stand with or against his brothers and his father.

Weep Not, Child is a superb first novel, as Ngũgĩ convincingly places the reader amidst the difficult decisions and violence that many ordinary Kenyans faced during the early days of the independence movement. I would have enjoyed this novel more if some of the key supporting characters had been better developed, but this is a minor criticism of this highly recommended book.

I loved The Wedding of Zein! It was one of those sleeper books you just want hand out to everyone.
I'm reading Nairobi Heat by Mukoma wa Ngugi, a crime novel set in- you guessed it- Nairobi. It's really good and very atmospheric. It's about a Paul Rusesabagina-style Rwandan who finds himself suspected of murder; the cop investigating the case gets a tip to go to Kenya to find out the truth. I'm not done yet but I'm loving it.

For anyone interested, my review of Rules of the Wild is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/106335#2926549

The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley covers Kenya, Somalia and Uganda in this journalist's look into family history and his own quest for news, love, and what-not....also an interesting perspective from a colonialist's viewpoint.

Tracking the Scent of My Mother by Muthoni Garland is quite vivid and gripped my heart almost from beginning to end, and Halfway between Nairobi and Dundori was really enjoyable. She has a very natural yet intelligent approach to writing; i can almost imagine her writing with a smirk on her face especially on the latter book i mentioned and some of her stuff from the Kwani series.

KENYA

The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

This short novel is set in colonial Kenya, in an isolated region where two rival populations each live on a ridge separated by a river that nourishes—and erodes—the land of both communities. One community is mainly Christian, led by a local man who has embraced the colonialists' religion and rejects traditional values, particularly circumcision of young men and women; the other is based on tribal traditions, led by a group of elders and influenced by a young man who is descended from a rich lineage, was educated in part by the Christian missionaries that influenced the other camp, and is highly respected by many in the community for educating its young people. This community embraces circumcision as an essential ritual, and is torn between those who embrace and support the Teacher, and a small but powerful faction led by a sworn power hungry enemy of the Teacher. The Teacher himself is torn by his duty to the community, passed down by his father, his love of the uncircumcised daughter of the preacher of the neighboring community, and his belief that the two rivals must unite to combat the increasing influence of the colonialists and gain independence from them. This was closer to a 4½ star than a 4 star read for me, and is highly recommended.

KENYA

Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
First published 1977



Petals of Blood opens with the arrest of Godfrey Munira, a schoolteacher, as a suspect in the murder of three African brewery executives in the Kenyan town of Ilmorog. As Munira makes his statement to the investigator, the history of this once-tiny village unfolds and with it the lives of Munira and others.

The principal time frame of this complex novel is the mid 1960s to early 1970s, comprising Kenya's early years of independence from Great Britain. Through the lives and thoughts of the inhabitants of Ilmorog we see the exhilaration of freedom turn to disillusionment as Kenya's native rulers and businessmen simply maintain the pattern of exploitation that the English established under colonialism. The villagers, in the face of drought and famine, organize collective action to seek relief, only to see those in power try to turn the misfortunes of others to their political and financial advantage. Every attempt at local initiative or free enterprise is crushed by those who have sold out to American and European corporate interests.

Ngũgĩ's political message is so pointed and direct that he was imprisoned after the novel's publication. The author does quite a bit of preaching, which stands somewhat in the way of the novel's working as a piece of fiction. He doesn't recommend specific action steps other than to follow the teachings of Lenin and Mao and the examples of Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Egypt, and other socialist states.

This is an important and memorable book with a message well worth heeding. As a novel, however, I didn't find it as enjoyable as Ngũgĩ's earlier less convoluted works.

Kenya Originally published 1964.

Weep Not, Child by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

In his first novel, Ngũgĩ tells the story of a village boy, Njoroge, hungry for education, growing up at the time of the fight for independence from the British known by the Kenyans as "the Emergency" and by the British as the "Mau Mau rebellion." Through the different members of his family and their histories (in which some of them were forced to fight for the British during the second world war) and their relationships with a neighboring African who has ingratiated himself with the British rulers and the main British farmer in the area who owns land that used to belong to Njoroge's family, the conflicts of the time emerge, as well as Njoroge's own intellectual and psychological development. This brief novel, although a little schematic at times, and not as complex as Ngũgĩ's later work, nevertheless paints a moving and powerful portrait of a time, a place, and a young person who may in some respects resemble Ngũgĩ himself.

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Tayeb Salih was born in a village in Sudan, but left the country at the age of 24 to pursue higher education. Despite never returning to Sudan permanently, or perhaps because of it, he writes with extreme insight about post-colonialism and the schisms between the Self and Other caused by the remains of colonial influence. Generally accepted as his masterpiece, Season of Migration to the North combines oral storytelling traditions with European literary forms. Moving back and forth through time and conversations, a story unfolds that is as gripping as a sexual thriller, yet is beautifully written and as full of ideas as an essay on North African identity in the 1960s.

The book opens with an unnamed narrator arriving back in his village along the Nile after spending seven years in England earning a doctorate in poetry. His return is both a long-sought reintegration with his community and a chance to be a man of importance to his friends and family. He is surprised to find a stranger among them, Mustafa, a man without a past who has settled in the village as a farmer and married a local woman. Our narrator is a bit jealous of a stranger who knows more about current village affairs than he and is determined to learn more, especially after one night when Mustafa gets drunk and begins to recite English poetry with a perfect accent.

Mustafa, perhaps to pacify the narrator or perhaps recognizing a similarity between them, invites the narrator to his house and tells the story of his life. Mustafa’s story is also told in first person narrative and is occasionally broken by returns to the present. Tantalizing hints are dropped about a tragic love affair and murder, but it is not until the end of the book, years later, that the narrator is able to piece the entire story together. By this time, the narrator himself has suffered a horrific loss, but one caused by the inability or unwillingness to act, not by passion.

The entire book is based on imagery of the cold North and tropical South, the intellectual European and the passionate African, civilizing colonialism and superstitious natives. Yet, Salih repeatedly tells us that this is all a lie. Mustafa manipulates images and stereotypes of Africa for sexual conquest, yet he is the cold, imperious intellectual, and not the Othello he imputes himself to be. Colonialism is referred to as a disease that spreads and can never be cured, because it leaves behind a way of thinking and a language that influences post-colonial society.

Salih was lauded by a group of Arabic critics in 1976 as “the genius of the Arabic novel.” Writing in Arabic, he says, is “a matter of principle.” Fortunately, he worked extensively with the translator, Denys Johnson-Davies, to create an English translation that is lyrical and authentic. I have also read some of Salih’s shorter works, collected in the NYRB Classic The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories, which are set in the same village. They too are beautifully written with an undercurrent of tension created by the idea of the Other and the stereotypes of the dominant sexual male and powerless, asexual (circumcised) female. With the erosion of traditions and polarization of religious ideology, Salih’s characters are adrift in a landscape that looks familiar but is studded with artifacts of colonization and the failures of post-colonial political policies. Between the beautiful language and the underlying ideas, it is no surprise to me that Season of Migration to the North was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics in 2001 as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.

Uganda: Kintu

I've been promising myself I'd read this someday for several years, and have decided 2021 is the year. I'm hosting a discussion on GoodReads at Great African Reads at this location if anyone is interested in joining us in January. I suspect this will take a couple of months.

It's piggybacked on a thread from 2017 discussing the same book, so scroll down to post 18 for the beginning of our chat.

KENYA

The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o



This epic is the first work of fiction by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o since his acclaimed novel Wizard of the Crow (2004), and it describes the creation of the Gĩkũyũ people in the area surrounding Mount Kenya. Gĩkũyũ (Man) and Mũmbi (Woman) met there, and had 10 daughters, one of whom, Warigia, was born lame, and the young women came to be known as The Perfect Nine. Their beauty, prowess and deeds were made known throughout the surrounding lands, and 99 young men came from different tribes to see the women, and seek their hands in marriage. After they arrived they were informed by Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi that their daughters would not agree to accompanying their new husbands to their villages; instead, they would choose which of the 99 men they would marry, and after doing so they would create a matriarchal society where they lived, which was to be led by their parents. The men who agreed to this challenge were also told that they, and the Perfect Nine, would have to embark on a mission to find Mwengeca, the king of human-eating ogres, wrestle him, and capture the hair in the middle of his tongue, a cure all which will grant Warigia the ability to walk.

Ngũgĩ puts down on paper the long and oft told story of the Gĩkũyũ people, of which he is a member, in an tale that does not compare with his best novels, but it is an interesting and informative read.

SOMALIA



When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
Published 2020, 256 p.

I′m always pleased to see a graphic novel receive recognition on the award circuit, and this young adult memoir is well-deserving of being a National Book Award finalist. Omar Mohamed was about five years old when his Somali village was attacked. His father was attacked while tending his fields, and his mother sent him and his younger brother, Hassan, running to hide at the neighbors. As the violence spread, everyone in the village fled, and the two boys were swept along. They eventually make it to Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. There they spend the rest of their childhood, waiting year after year for their mother to find them or to be relocated abroad.

Life in the camp is tough, especially for young Omar. His brother doesn′t speak and has seizures, so Omar must watch him while also getting water every day, rations every other week, and firewood for the woman in a nearby tent who cooks for them. When a man befriends Omar and offers to help him start school (fifth grade, so Omar can be with age peers), his world suddenly has possibilities and hope.

When Stars are Scattered is the story of brothers, friendship, war, the kindness of strangers, and the transformative power of education. The artwork is spot-on, and the bold outlines and color convey a childlike simplicity that is appealing, while the story itself deals with complex emotions and difficult issues such as child marriage and the world′s response to the refugee crisis. I highly recommend this book, even if you aren′t sure about graphic novels.

Uganda: The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

In my quest to read more internationally, I came across this book by this Ugandan author. It was described as a girl's quest for her absent mother, but although that quest runs like a thread through the story, it is much more the coming of age story of Kirabo who grows up in a village in Uganda with her wealthy grandparents and who is well surrounded by her family. But it is also about the relationship between men and women, between women themselves, the importance and strength of the family, of the clan, the contrast between the countryside where people live from agriculture and the city where people live a Western lifestyle, about the choices you can make as a woman in Uganda (and they turn out to be less obvious than we would suspect with our Western point of view).
It was refreshing to read a book that for once was not about the contrast between black and white, but where the focus was mainly on the customs, traditions and mutual relationships of the Ugandans. Kirabo is a strong main character, but a number of other characters, especially the women, also come out well. This was a wonderful book to read.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is also the author of Kintu and apparently that one is also something to look forward to.

ETHIOPIA



Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste
Published 2010, 308 p.

This is the story of a family on the eve of the Ethiopian revolution that would topple the centuries old monarchy. Hailu is a famous doctor, who is helpless before his wife's congenital heart failure. His older son, Yonas, is in his thirties and a professor of history, religious, with a wife and young daughter. The younger son, Dawit, is a college student, idealistic and intent on being part of the change happening around him, rebelling against his father's attempts to protect him. What happens to them during the years 1974-77 is heartbreaking and absorbing and a beautiful look at family relationships during a tumultuous period of political upheaval.

Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa and now lives in the United States. She writes with a maturity that belies this is her first novel. The language is such that I reread passages just to enjoy the language. It is a difficult novel to read, however, because of the atrocities that happened in those years. Although the setting is historical, and I know nothing about Ethiopian history, I had no trouble following the plot because this is not a novel about the macro, but the micro, a family. That said, I think the novel is well-researched, given the bibliography at the end. I very much look forward to reading her later novel, The Shadow King.

Edited to add country

SOMALIA



Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
Published 2010, 288 p.

Jama and his mother left Somaliland after Jama's father deserted them, and they are now living as dependents with unfriendly relatives in Yemen. To stay out of everyone's hair, including his mercurial mother's, Jama spends his days roaming the markets with other semi-feral children. After his mother's death, Jama decides to search for the father he has never known. At the age of eleven, he travels first to his homeland, then on to Sudan through Italian-held Abyssinia. After a stint as an askaris (local soldier serving in a colonial army), Jama wanders further north searching for a better future in the British merchant marines.

Jama's 1000-mile journey is based on the the life of the author's father. The book opens in 1935 and ends in 1947, covering a very tumultuous period in African history. The Italians and the British are vying for territory and as World War II begins, Jama is caught up in causes he doesn't understand, including, at the end of the novel, the drama of the Jewish refugees on the Exodus. As with all fictional biographies, I wonder where the line is between fact and fiction, but if even the bones of the story are true, it's an incredible one. For a debut novel, it is very well done, and it was long-listed for the Orange Prize.

I finished the very good novel Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas, a writer who was born in Sudan and grew up in the U.S. The novel is about Saraaya, a small town in the middle of Sudan, more or less on the front line between the two sides of the country's intermittent but long lasting civil war that ended up splitting the country in two. We see the town, and fear the possibility of coming conflict, through the eyes of five disperate but intertwined characters. Alex, a young American NGO employee has come to the village with the assignment to create updated maps of the area, which haven't been revised since before the English colonizers left the area. The job is almost impossible, however, as the topography of the region changes with the seasons--rainy and dry--and global warming has wrecked havoc with even these haphazard patterns. Living with him in his small compound are Dana, a young Sudanese-American filmmaker trying to document the lives of the villagers while she simultaneously perfects her craft, William, a Nilot who is hired as Alex's translator, Layla, a young nomad woman who works as cook, and Mustafa, a 12-year-old dynamo who is William's gofer and all-round helper who dreams of escape to the national capital, Khartoum. We see the impending peril through the eyes of these five characters, with their varied perspectives, hopes and troubles. Abbas' powers of observation and description are acute. Her sentence- and paragraph-level writing are gorgeous. Her characters are believable, as are their interactions with each other. So even while the plotting is somewhat slow in the first half, the book was still enjoyable for me. In the meantime, the descriptions of the village, the lifestyle and concerns of its people, the historical and environmental forces that have shaped it all are nothing short of admirable. So I very much recommend the book.

KENYA



The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber
Published 2021, 258 p.

Every day people are dying and being born, only men can leave those who depend on them behind and still be called brave. A woman is not praised when she suffers, she is praised for suffering in silence.

This debut novel by Kenyan author Khadija Abdalla Bajaber is a fascinating blend of allegory, fable, and coming of age, set in the author's hometown of Mombasa. Here Islamic faith abuts African myth, traditional storytelling has a rich history, and the sea is omnipresent and both watches and bears watching.

Aisha is the only child of Ali, a fisherman who is at sea more than at home, drawn by a compulsion to go beyond the boundaries even other fisherman are careful not to cross. Her mother having died when she was young, Aisha is allowed at first to accompany her father, but she fails some unspoken test and is thereafter relegated to shore and her grandmother's company. This is an uneasy pairing, as her grandmother wants her to be a docile, obedient girl eager for marriage, none of which are things that Aisha can be. When Ali fails to return from one of his fishing trips, his mother gives him five days in which to reappear or she will have him declared dead. Aisha, however, is determined to find him and bring him back.

The first half of the book is about Aisha's quest on a boat made of bones conjured by a talking cat. She faces three trials which comprise a sort of rite of passage. The novel could have ended at this point with a tidy, if fantastical, coming of age story, but instead the author explores Aisha's life after her adventure. Although Aisha was always regarded as unusual, now she has been changed in ways that make even the local wildlife wary of her. How does one live after such an adventure? What does one owe one's family and village, and what must one do to be true to oneself?

I enjoyed this unusual novel, and with the exception of a transition period between the two halves of the book, I thought the writing was interesting and fresh. The author uses local words and phrases which reinforces the sense of place. I became invested in the characters and part of me hopes the author writes a sequel so that we may learn more about Hamza and the mysterious House of Rust and Aisha's journey's out into the wider world. A promising debut novel.

The House of Rust was the inaugural winner of the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize. Awarded to a manuscript by an author residing primarily in Africa, the award was founded "to facilitate direct access to publishing in the United States for a new generation of African writers."