A History of Burning
The history of Indians who lived in East Africa may be little known, but there are still many alive today who were sent into exile in 1972 by the Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin. Earlier in the 20th century, their ancestors had arrived in the country, often as indentured railway workers under the British colonial system.
In 1898, the teenaged Pirbhai from Gujarat is one of them. Though he suffers indignities and exploitation, he prevails and establishes a good life for himself and his descendants until the turbulence and changing fortunes of Africa force the Indian community to be displaced yet again to other countries, including England and Canada.
Slow to begin with – not helped by the affected overuse of obscure Swahili and Gujarati words – the novel tightens considerably as the story moves into the politics, racial conflicts and dramatic happenings of the 1960s-70s before settling into a family relationships drama with a diversion into Toronto’s 1992 Yonge Street Riot and a somewhat disjointed conclusion.
Viewed through the eyes of several generations, the opinions and experiences of some of these individuals will touch you more than others, but at its heart this is a story of belonging and “how the leaving was protection, a kind of survival. How sometimes, holding on required letting go.” An ambitious, salient novel that gets a little entangled in its own complexity.
