This was a fascinating work of historical fiction that takes the reader right into the terrifying and often times comically surreal actions of a brutal African dictator. The entire novel is a first person account told through the eyes of Nick Garrigan, Idi Amin's fictional personal physician. Ami...
Mid 5. The seige and defence of Ladysmith was of momentous import to the preservation of the ideals which underpinned the British Empire, amidst a conflict which brutally exposed the outdated approach of the Crown's forces. Set in 1899, this novel brilliantly evokes the suffering of the beseiged ...
Foden is better known for novels like The Last King of Scotland and Zanzibar, but this book shows that he is equally adept at non-fiction. The Mimi and Toutou of the title were a pair of British motor launches sent to gain control of Lake Tanganyika during the First World War. The commanding offi...
Wife number four. I attended the ceremony at the cathedral. It was packed, not to mention the thousands cheering themselves hoarse outside. It had been announced that he was also having a Moslem ceremony – “I love all the religions in Uganda,” he’d said on the radio &...
Looking back, I am shocked I could have forgotten Ryman’s death so blithely, even if for a moment. But there were distractions … The breeze was carrying a scent of green apples from a grocer’s trolley stall and cinnamon from a baker selling hot cross buns. The buns were laid out on greaseproof pa...
It shone across Lake Tanganyika to Mount Kungwe beyond—the holy mountain whose priests were solitary, rogue-male baboons, whose acolytes were bounding bands of screeching hyrax. The expedition would have heard the eerie cries of these dassies or rock rabbits, one of the most extraordinary s...
Two others came in also. These did not explode, however, wooden plugs having been substituted for their fuses. On inspection, it turned out that they had been painted in the Free State colours and engraved ‘With the compliments of the season’. One was empty, the other filled with plum pudding. An...