nairobi heat by mukoma wa ngugi
DESCRIPTION
In Madison, Wisconsin, it’s a big deal when African peace activist Joshua Hakizimana—famous for saving hundreds of people from the Rwandan genocide—accepts a position at the university. When a young girl is found murdered on his doorstep. For local police Detective Ishmael—an African-American in an “extremely white” town—it seems like the kind of crime that happens in an area where the Ku Klux Klan still holds rallies. But then he gets a mysterious phone call: “If you want the truth, you must go to its source. The truth is in the past. Come to Nairobi.” It’s the beginning of a journey that will take Ishmael to a place still vibrating from the surrounding genocide, where NGO money rules and where the local cops shoot first and ask questions later. And although it’s the land of his ancestors, it becomes a disorienting and terrifying quest through the slums of Nairobi, a place where knowing the truth about history can kill you.TRANSCRIPT
HEATMUKOMA
WA NGUGI
MELVILLE INTERNATIONAL CRIME
MELVILLEHOUSEBROOKLYN, NEW YORK
To Meja Mwangi and David Mailu for blurring the margins
AcknowledgementsWithout much discussion and constant critique a novel such as this would be all the poorer. So, thanks to Kristin Waller, Keenan Schofield, Megan Frantz and my wife Maureen Burke for their candid, useful and some might say merciless responses. Also thanks to Sophie Hoult at David Godwin Associates and Penguin South Africa for investing time, energy and resources in the project. And, finally, thanks to James Woodhouse for making the editing process not only painless but more importantly creative.
Nairobi Heat© 2010 Mukoma Wa Ngugi
First Melville House printing: August 2011
Melville House Publishing145 Plymouth StreetBrooklyn, NY 11201www.mhpbooks.com
isbn: 978-1-61219-007-5
M U KOMA WA N G U G I was born in Illinois but raised in Kenya. The son of world-renowned African writer and Nobel finalist, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, his own poetry and fiction has been short-listed for the Caine Prize for African writing in 2009, and for the 2010 Penguin Prize for African Writing. He lives in Stamford, Connecticut.
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MELVILLE INTERNATIONAL CRIME