Abyssinian Chronicles
Read Abyssinian Chronicles Online
Authors: Moses Isegawa
ABYSSINIAN CHRONICLES
“Epic, sprawling, brimming with life—and death, Moses Isegawa’s
Abyssinian Chronicles
blasts open the tidy borders of the conventional first novel and redraws the literary map to reveal a whole new world.… Eloquent, harrowing, and compulsively readable.”
—Francine Prose,
Elle
“The first richly imaginative treatment of contemporary Uganda in fiction.… It is in parts haunting, and grippingly good.”
—
The Hartford Courant
“There are few first novelists who write with the assurance and authority of Isegawa. This is a young writer who will command attention from the literary world for many years to come.”
—
Rocky Mountain News
“As Salman Rushdie’s
Midnight’s Children
was for modern India,
Abyssinian Chronicles
will likely prove to be a breakthrough book for Uganda.”
—Time Out New York
“Isegawa’s style is an intriguing and at times baffling mixture of exuberance on the one hand, and, on the other, a hard, journalistic realism, which dramatises its scornful insights in language rarely less than elegant.”
—The Independent
(London)
“Black Americans should read Isegawa not only as a great storyteller in the African tradition but as a great textbook writer of the struggle for personal freedom in the face of a society fractured by the slavery of colonialism. All Americans should read him—frankly, for the same reason.”
—
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Overall, one of the most impressive works of fiction to have ever come out of Africa. A spectacular debut performance.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred)
“Bewitching.…
Abyssinian Chronicles
is, in every sense, a big book, exploding with big themes and a rich cast of colourful characters.… A funny, gripping, angry epic.”
—
The Observer
(London)
“Very few novels have its exuberance; still fewer hit their marks with Isegawa’s assurance and poise.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“One of the most sensitive and encompassing portraits of a modern African society to date. At this novel’s conclusion, the lingering question concerns what more its gifted author might have to tell us.”
—The Times Literary Supplement
MOSES ISEGAWAABYSSINIAN CHRONICLES
Moses Isegawa was born in Kampala, Uganda. In 1990, he left Uganda for the Netherlands and is now a Dutch citizen. This is his first novel.
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, NOVEMBER
2001
Copyright © 2000 by Moses Isegawa
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in the Netherlands as
Abessijnse kronieken
by Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, in 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Moses Isegawa. Copyright Nederlandse Vertaling © 1998 by Ria Loohuizen. This English language edition first published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2000.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Isegawa, Moses, [date]
[
Abessijnse kronieken.
English]
Abyssinian chronicles / by Moses Isegawa.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-78780-4
1. Uganda—Fiction. I. Title.
PT5881.19.S24 A2413 2000
839.3’1364—dc21
99-089888
Author photo © Jerry Bauer
v3.1
_______
MAIN CHARACTERS
___________
Mugezi:
narrator and principal character
Serenity:
Mugezi’s father (
also called Sere or Mpanama
)
Padlock:
Mugezi’s mother (
real name Nakkazi, also called Virgin or Sr. Peter
)
Grandpa:
Serenity’s father
Grandma:
Grandpa’s sister, Serenity’s aunt
Tiida:
Serenity’s eldest sister (
also called Miss Sunlight Soap
)
Dr. Saif Ssali:
Tiida’s husband
Nakatu:
Serenity’s other sister
Hajj Ali:
Nakatu’s second husband
Kawayida:
Serenity’s half-brother
Lwandeka:
Padlock’s youngest sister
Kasawo:
Padlock’s other sister
Mbale:
Padlock’s eldest brother
Kasiko:
Serenity’s concubine
Nakibuka:
Padlock’s aunt, Serenity’s mistress
Hajj Gimbi:
Serenity and Padlock’s neighbor in Kampala
Lusanani:
Hajj Gimbi’s youngest wife, Mugezi’s lover in Kampala
Loverboy:
client of Padlock’s (real name Mbaziira)
Cane:
Mugezi’s friend in primary school
Lwendo:
Mugezi’s friend at the seminary
Fr. Kaanders:
librarian at the seminary
Fr. Mindi:
treasurer at the seminary
Fr. Lageau:
Fr. Mindi’s successor
Jo Nakabiri:
Mugezi’s lover in Kampala
Eva and Magdelein:
Mugezi’s lovers in Holland
___________
boubou:
a kind of wide garment for a man (West Africa)
busuti:
a kind of woman’s garment (central Uganda)
kandooya:
torture method whereby one’s elbows are tied together behind one’s back
Katonda wange!:
My God!
kibanda:
black market
Kibanda Boys:
Kampala mafia
mamba:
poisonous snake
matooke:
plantain
mpanama:
hydrocele
mtuba:
an African tree
muko:
brother-in-law
muteego:
AIDS
nagana:
a tropical cattle disease
panga:
large cleaver
posho:
corn bread
shamba:
plantation
… 1971: VILLAGE DAYS
T
HREE FINAL IMAGES
flashed across Serenity’s mind as he disappeared into the jaws of the colossal crocodile: a rotting buffalo with rivers of maggots and armies of flies emanating from its cavities; the aunt of his missing wife, who was also his longtime lover; and the mysterious woman who had cured his childhood obsession with tall women. The few survivors of my father’s childhood years remembered that up until the age of seven, he would run up to every tall woman he saw passing by and, in a gentle voice trembling with unspeakable expectation, say, “Welcome home, Ma. You were gone so long I was afraid you would never return.” Taken by surprise, the woman would smile, pat him on the head, and watch him wring his hands before letting him know that he had once again made a mistake. The women in his father’s homestead, assisted by some of the villagers, tried to frighten him into quitting by saying that one day he
would run into a ghost disguised as a tall woman, which would take him away and hide him in a very deep hole in the ground. They could have tried milking water from a stone with better results. Serenity, a wooden expression on his face, just carried on running up to tall women and getting disappointed by them.
Until one hot afternoon in 1940 when he ran up to a woman who neither smiled nor patted him on the head; without even looking at him, she took him by the shoulders and pushed him away. This mysterious curer of his obsession won herself an eternal place in his heart. He never ran up to tall women again, and he would not talk about it, not even when Grandma, his only paternal aunt, promised to buy him sweets. He coiled into his inner cocoon, from whose depths he rejected all efforts at consolation. A smooth, self-contained indifference descended on his face so totally that he won himself the name Serenity, shortened to “Sere.”