Abyssinian Chronicles: A Novel
by Moses Isegawa
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Book Summary Information
Author: Moses IsegawaEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11-13
ISBN: 0375705775
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Abyssinian Chronicles: A Novel
Book Review: Wonderful book, truly moving and enthralling!
Summary: 5 Stars
I started reading this book at 9:00 am this morning and finished it 12 hours later, no one could pull me away from this gem! What a wonderfully written book... if one doesn't know much about Africa and the political, cultural, religious conflicts that are so much a part of my continent, then this book is for you. Make no mistake, though, this is no boring, uncaptivating book, it is extremely entertaining, yet also very informative. At times I found myself laughing out loud and re-reading passages over and over again, at other times, I felt a cold shiver creep down my spine, reminding me of the Ugandans I met when I was growing up in Africa and recounting the horrirific stories they told me. If you are to buy just one book in 2002, let it be this one. Be warned, though, when you pick it up to read, make sure it is on a day when you have nothing else scheduled to do. You will NOT be able to put it down. Moses Isegawa is a marvelous writer, I cannot wait to see what he will come up with next. This is the kind of book that deserves the Booker Prize....but then again, that's all political...isn't it?
Summary of Abyssinian Chronicles: A Novel
Like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Moses Isegawa's Abyssinian Chronicles tells a riveting story of twentieth-century Africa that is passionate in vision and breathtaking in scope.At the center of this unforgettable tale is Mugezi, a young man who manages to make it through the hellish reign of Idi Amin and experiences firsthand the most crushing aspects of Ugandan society: he withstands his distant father's oppression and his mother's cruelty in the name of Catholic zeal, endures the ravages of war, rape, poverty, and AIDS, and yet he is able to keep a hopeful and even occasionally amusing outlook on life. Mugezi's hard-won observations form a cri de coeur for a people shaped by untold losses.
In his hugely impressive Abyssinian Chronicles Moses Isegawa renders the chaotic swirl of life in Uganda, from a lazy, remote village to the urban rush of Kampala. Containing within its 460 pages weddings, funerals, infidelities, public struggles with corrupt dictatorships (a section called "Amin, the Godfather"), and private struggles with God ("Seminary Years"), this is a first novel of epic ambitions. Narrated by Mugezi, the son of a man named Serenity and a woman named Padlock, Isegawa's book is wild and decentered, moving swiftly and confidently from place to place, from character to character. It is the kind of book that says, just follow, trust me, all these names and passions will sort themselves out and make sense sooner or later.
The prose itself bristles and cooks, with graceful transitions ("This time a year passed without hearing any news from Tiida") and scenes lurching with activity. Isegawa, who was born in Uganda but now lives in the Netherlands, is a master of unexpected verbs and details. Here Mugezi describes his mother's voice:
This woman knew how to irritate me on all fronts: her pathetic country-western girlie whine, xeroxed from a white nun from her convent days, the same nun from whom she had inherited the little tremolos which she sprinkled piously on the last hymn every night, really got to me.Inconsistencies in the narrator's point of view can mar this novel and arrest its progress. The narrator will suddenly describe interior states he couldn't possibly know about: his mother's depression and loneliness, which she hides from everyone, the deepest thoughts of distant relatives. But for readers hoping to glimpse a foreign world, these bumps in the road are worth the ride. --Ellen Williams
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