The Dream Chasers

by Claudette Oduor

Four months to the disputed December 2007 general elections in Kenya, Lulu is living with a divorced, jobless mother prone to periodic lunacy. The radio and television are filled with campaigns, which Lulu pays little attention to. She doesn’t think the elections have a bearing in her life.

Lulu is in love with her best friend, Muchai, but they can neither admit it to themselves nor do something about it because Lulu is from the Luo tribe, and Muchai is Kikuyu. Muchai is marrying his girlfriend not because he loves her but because she is Kikuyu like him. His family would rather he be unhappy with a Kikuyu than happy with a Luo girl.

Muchai's girlfriend breaks off the engagement, but elections take place and a wave of ethnic cleansing threatens to rob Lulu of her chance to finally be with Muchai.

A new short story from Master Publishing of Kenya and distributed worldwide by Untreed Reads.

42 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2011

Reviews

[mwangi · Rating 3 out of 5]

oduor’s prose is delectable through and through. this story of the bitter spoils of an ethnocracy unfolds through the eyes of a blunt girl with a matter-of-fact attitude and an aversion to electoral shenanigans, which is typical thing for a kenyan young person to be. the love story lent itself to a classic trope which found new life in oduor’s expert hands. the mother-daughter relationship is coarse, and there’s not much of a resolution to be found, but an underlying kindness is exposed when lulu’s mother acknowledges her grief. having read some oduor before this, it’s exciting to see how much promise her writing held within it, in retrospect.