Novel
Before Dawn
Andreya Masiye · 1971
Synopsis
In a small village in the Chiparamba valley, in eastern Zambia, the novel follows Kavumba, son of Menyani Banda, the chief's son, and of Tinenenji, one of his wives. Left to himself after his mother's death, he works for the bwalo, the village council, in exchange for leftover food. Around him the customs of the Chewa take shape: the authority of the elders, which Menyani defies, the spirits of the ancestors and the medicine of Naphiri, midwife and healer.
Context
Published in 1971 by the National Educational Company of Zambia, in 144 pages, the novel appeared under the name A. Sylvester Masiye. Sylvester Mutunda studies it in 2017 among the Zambian novels whose characters' names carry a meaning: Kavumba refers to the whirlwind and to the sacred serpent Thunga, Tinenenji means “what can we say”. He also reads in it the clash of tradition with colonial Western medicine and taxation.
Who it is for
For discovering the Chewa village world, its beliefs and its medicine, in a Zambian novel in English.
Prizes and reception
For Sylvester Mutunda, the novel documents the culture of this people through a single destiny.