Dance of the Jakaranda
(2017) is set in Kenya in 1963, the year of the country’s independence from
Britain.
The story goes back to
1886 as construction commences on The Uganda Railway, built by the British, to connect
Uganda to the sea port of Mombasa in Kenya. In 1893 construction began on the
Mombasa to Nairobi rail line that transformed the nation.
It was the
construction of the railway that brought Reverend Richard Turnbull and Ian
McDonald from Britain to Kenya (known then as the British East Africa
Protectorate). It was also the railway that brought Babu Rajan Salim from India
to the foreign land.
McDonald, the colonial
administrator, built a home in 1902, and in 1963 it was the Jakaranda Hotel. Babu
became a technician, and the Reverend began an adoption campaign for abandonned
babies. Over the years, Ian, Richard, and Babu’s lives were as separate as the tracks
of the railway.
Ian, Richard, and
Babu’s lives intersect when they are all implicated in the controversial birth
of a child to Seneiya, the daughter of a Masai chief. In 1963, when they are
old men, and the child’s child is a young woman, the truth is revealed.
In 1963, the ‘’Whites
Only’’ sign was removed from the Jakaranda Hotel, and Africans, Asians, and Arabs
all rejoiced – and began ‘’testing the limits, exploring new horizons’’ after
Kenya’s independence.
This generational,
historical, multi-racial novel blends everyone into a melting pot known as the
dance of the Jakaranda, the transformational journey of men and a nation. The
characters are interesting, the tensions are real, and the plot is comically
entangled in a tale of love, loss, and lust.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different
in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament
(2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a
Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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