I first read this interesting novel on the Swahili coast in 2021. The novel covers various aspects of the history, customs and social life of the people living on the coast. Colonialism, racism, trade, merchants, colonizers, biases, politics, minority communities, education, orientalism, ignorance about oral communities and many other themes are discussed in this novel. I find the writing style of the novelist very different from what I have read before.
Some of the chapters in the book are Hasan Ali, Fredrick, Pearce, Rehana, An Interruption, Amin and Rashid, Amin and Jamila, Rashid and Amin, and A Continuation. The setting of the novel is based in a small town along the coast from Mombasa. In 1899, when Hassanali sets out for the mosque he finds and exhausted Englishman. Hassanali rescues the man named Martin Pearce. Pearce recovers and visits Hassanali to thank him for help and support. There Pearce meets Rehana, the sister of Hassanali. Pearce finds her attractive and hence begins the love affair. This all happens on the brink of the twentieth century.
Some of the interesting sentences in the novel are:
- Happy to be disturbed (p. 49).
- Exaggerating his willingness to listen (p. 52).
- Left them bereft and disconsolate in unfamiliar silences (p. 64).
- When inspiration deserts you, it deserts you completely (p. 97).
- You are over-salting the dish (p. 139).
- Elysian pastures (p. 149).
- Knowledge sometimes obscures what was known before (p. 210).
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