Novel
Return to the Shadows
Robert Serumaga · 1969
Synopsis
Joe Musizi, a wealthy man who has known how to profit from his country's successive coups, flees the latest one, which will no doubt last no longer than the previous ones. With his houseboy, Simon, he takes the road to his mother's house, which he finds ransacked. As the journey goes on, he is haunted by shadows that remind him of the loyalties and decencies he has left behind.
Context
The author's only novel, the book appeared in London from Heinemann in 1969, as number 54 of the African Writers Series, and in New York from Atheneum in 1970. It came out the same year as The Elephants, one of the plays of Serumaga, a man of the theatre above all, whom Ian Kiyingi Muddu places among the great figures of the Ugandan stage of the 1970s. Like his character, the author had studied in Europe.
Who it is for
For reading the only novel of a great Ugandan man of the theatre, on the instability of African regimes.
Prizes and reception
Kirkus Reviews, in 1970, found the hero rather selfish and the argument didactic, the author being no Chinua Achebe.