Novel
Chaff on the Wind
Ebou Dibba · 1986
Synopsis
In the thirties, two young men leave their village and travel by boat to the capital of colonial Gambia. Pateh, bold and a womaniser, quickly finds work on the docks, loves fine clothes and becomes a smuggler to pay for them; he seduces the young Isatou, who is soon married off to Charles, an old man who is a cousin of a signare. Dingding, shy and cautious, has a head for business and befriends James, a serious Christian who becomes his guide.
Context
The novel was published in London by Macmillan in 1986 and runs to a little over two hundred pages. Dibba sets the action between the two wars, before his own birth, and some characters reappear in Fafa, his second novel, published in 1989 and set in the fifties: he was thus the first Gambian author to write a sequel to his first book. A third novel, Alhaji, intended for young readers, followed in 1992.
Who it is for
A novel in English, with a linear narrative, for those who want to see colonial Gambia between the wars from the inside.
Prizes and reception
The Guardian's obituary praised his sense of the age and his portrayal of an African culture grappling with colonial reality.
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