KHAMA

by Stanley Gazemba

"When Khama’s father dies following injuries incurred during an elephant hunt, a huge responsibility is transferred to Khama as the first-born son. Further still the old man, who is a respected tribal spokesman and decision-maker, has already seen the leadership qualities in young Khama, and he prepares him to inherit the role in his dying words to the young man. But taking over leadership from the current chief of the Amakonko tribe is not going to be without challenge, the chief’s weaknesses notwithstanding. Khama has to flee to the hills and assemble an elite fighting squad and fight for the throne. The story is inspired by the legend of Shaka Zulu and was shortlisted for the inaugural Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize."

248 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 16, 2012

About the author

Stanley Gazemba is an award-winning author and his breakthrough novel, ‘The Stone Hills of Maragoli’, published by Kwani? won the Jomo Kenyatta prize for Kenyan Literature in 2003. He is also the author of two other novels: ‘Callused Hands’ and ‘Khama’, he has written eight children’s books. A prolific writer, Stanley’s articles and stories have appeared in several international publications including the New York Times, ‘A’ is for Ancestors, the Caine Prize Anthology and the East African magazine. Stanley lives in Nairobi and his short story ‘Talking Money’ was recently published in ‘Africa 39’, a Hay Festival publication which was released in 2014. Published by Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, ‘Africa 39’ features a collection of 39 short stories by some of Africa’s leading contemporary authors. Stanley is also in the process of working on an array of creative literary projects.

Reviews

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: On his deathbed, Khama's father leaves him with some words of wisdom, inspiring the young boy to challenge the status quo of his tribe and eventually form an empire. This book follows his story from that small moment to the rise and eventually the change of his empire.

Would you like this?: This is an 'epic' with a personal touch. It describes events occuring over decades so we get to see political movements and the bigger picture. However, we also get a closer look at the main character's thoughts and feelings through specific events. It is set in South Africa and is inspired by Shaka Zulu.

Why 3?: For me, a rating of 3 generally means "It was okay but there was something specific I didn't like about it, or the style just isn't my sort of thing. But I think it's well-written enough and other people might like it, it's just not for me" and that holds true for this book as well. In this case, it's not that I didn't like it, just that it wasn't for me.

While reading this book, I felt like I was frozen in a moment of 'it's going to get good!' that interested me and kept me going. However, I never felt truely satisfied by it. I didn't dislike this book, but I wasn't amazed by it either and it's not something I would read again.

The Good:

* Switching between bigger-picture and personal perspective throughout the book was smooth and well-done.

* The story was captivating and kept my interest.

* The fact that the story is related to real-life events was pretty cool.

The Bad

* To be honest, in this case 'the bad' is more like 'the less good', because it's not that I didn't like the book, it's just that I wasn't satisfied by it. That was the main problem.

* It was a bit boring when the author was describing with great detail exactly how Khama's muscles were moving as he trained to become stronger and a better warrior. I think it's great that we got to see his training routine, but the extended detail was unnecessary.

* The treatment of women by Khama and the tribe in this story was annoying. They were treated like hysterical, stupid and bothersome goods. But that was more to do with the culture of the people in the book than the author, as was indicated subtly by some of the women performing human actions and in a couple of cases even standing up for themselves. It's just that we couldn't see that very clearly because Khama didn't see it that way and we're looking from his perspective. But I think the author did this pretty well to show what the culture of the tribe was like. To be fair, they were also raiding villages to build the empire and taking slaves and killing innocent people (btw none of this was written graphically, just matter-of-factly so don't let that put you off) so I mean... that was just the culture at the time. It was just frustrating since I had previously been reading books that were not like that at all.