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159 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
With our history of the misuse and oppression of Africans by an alliance of Arabs, Indians and Europeans, it was naïve to expect that things would turn out differently. And even where distinctions were no longer visible to the naked eye, remnants of blood were always reflected in the division of the spoils of privilege. As the years passed, we bore with rising desperation the betrayal of the promise of freedom.
His debut novel, Memory of Departure, from 1987, is about a failed uprising and keeps us on the African continent. The gifted young protagonist attempts to disengage from the social blight of the coast, hoping to be taken under the wing of a prosperous uncle in Nairobi. Instead he is humiliated and returned to his broken family, the alcoholic and violent father and a sister forced into prostitution.
We had already learnt not to choose one of ourselves for such tasks, not one of those who had for centuries, and against all visible evidence, persisted in calling themselves Arabs. Independence had taught us enough of the violent hatred that the rest of the country felt for the history that we had been part of. We had strutted our miscegenated way through the centuries, making monkeys out of our half-brothers and half-sisters, while those that we claimed to be part of, where they knew of us, disclaimed and despised us as some bastard offspring of energetic and uncouth sons.