Novel
No Bride Price
David Rubadiri · 1967
Synopsis
Lombe, a young civil servant, discovers the slippery corridors of power and soon clashes with his minister; around him, tensions rise. The novel also follows the lasting and complicated affair he carries on in town with Miria, his mistress, until the day a coup d'état comes to upend both their lives.
Context
Published in Nairobi in 1967 by the East African Publishing House, in the Modern African Library series, with a cover by Terry Hirst, the novel runs to 180 pages. The author draws in it on his experience as a diplomat and political activist. Muniini K. Mulera, in Kampala's Daily Monitor in 2018, cites it as the author's great novel, known also for a poetry he calls very accessible.
Who it is for
For reading one of the first three novels of Malawi, written by a poet who passed through diplomacy.
Prizes and reception
Okot p'Bitek, in the review Transition, found the characters very real, like their situations, but the title unrelated to the book.
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