Dust

Title:

Dust

Author:

Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo.

Personal Author:

Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo.

ISBN:

9780307961204

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

369 pages ; 25 cm

Abstract:

"A novel that opens with a young man's murder on the day of the tumultuous 2007 election in Kenya, but then goes into the history of his family and of the splintered African nation around them--in scenes stretching back to a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s"-- Provided by publisher.

Geographic Term:

Kenya -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.

Kenya -- Fiction.

Genre:

Domestic fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION OWUOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Hull Street	Book	FICTION OWUOR	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

From a breathtaking new voice, a novel about a splintered family in Kenya--a story of power and deceit, unrequited love, survival and sacrifice.

Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany's mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas' house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation.

Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A brutal death in Nairobi prompts a reunion of the victim's family and unlocks a host of troubling memories. The center of Owuor's moody debut novel is Ajany, a young woman who returns to her family's northern Kenya homestead from Brazil after learning that her brother Odidi has been gunned down in the midst of post-election violence. (The novel is set in 2007, when the turmoil there left hundreds in the country dead and tens of thousands displaced.) As their father and estranged mother reconvene in Wuoth Ogik ("the journey ends"), their efforts to mourn in peace are soon upended. Chief among the disruptions is Isaiah, an Englishman whose father's books fill the house in Kenya. Both he and Ajany's father provide an opportunity for Owuor to explore the previous generations' violence in the country, which she evokes in harrowing detail (family members' military adventures in Burma in particular). But the novel's strength is in the present, particularly as Ajany travels to Nairobi to uncover the circumstances behind Odidi's murder. And there, Owuor explores how layers of corruption threaten to overwhelm the sense of social justice among its citizens and how Westerners oversimplify the country's predicament. Ajany's character might be more effective were her back history in Brazil less sketchy, but Owuor intentionally keeps the novel's tone impressionistic and indirect. Though that can make it harder to keep the plot lines straight, the prose has an appealingly rough-hewn poetry, built on clipped sentences and brush-stroke evocations of the dry landscape. ("The Kalacha dusk will soon descend in colors borrowed from another country's autumn.") Owuor, the 2003 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, has style to spare, which more than compensates for the looseness of the narrative.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.