Originally published by Doubleday Canada in 2014. Includes bibliographical references (pages 373-379).
Contents:
Going home -- Gaam, Dar es Salaam : the India Town -- Gaam strikes back : the leaning tower and other recent developments -- The road to Tanga -- Tanga, decline in the sun -- India and Africa : of entrepreneurs old and new -- Kilwa, the Old City -- Quiloa, the Island -- The mystics down the road : discovering the Sufis -- Burton and Speke, and the East African expedition of 1857 -- The old westbound caravan route -- Bongoland : something is happening -- Kigoma and Ujiji : the long road -- The south coast : a journey shortened -- The southern highlands : Tukuyu - Neue Langenberg -- The southern highlands : Mbeya -- Book, medicine, and spirit -- Zanzibar : island in the sun -- Zanzibar : the revolution -- Zanzibar : the sweet and the smelly -- The old warriors : Dar es Salaam again -- Omba-omba : the culture of begging -- The new (Asian) African : politics and creativity -- Nairobi, lost and regained? -- Closing the circle.
Summary:
From M.G. Vassanji, comes a poignant love letter to his birthplace and homeland, East Africa -- a powerful and surprising portrait that only an insider could write. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part history-rarely-told, here is a powerful and timely portrait of a constantly evolving land. From a description of Zanzibar and its evolution to a visit to a slave-market town at Lake Tanganyika; from an encounter with a witchdoctor in an old coastal village to memories of his own childhood in the streets of Dar es Salaam and the suburbs of Nairobi, Vassanji combines brilliant prose, thoughtful and candid observation, and a lifetime of revisiting and reassessing the continent that molded him -- and, as we discover when we follow the journeys that became this book, shapes him still.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.