''Abyssinian Chronicles'' (Abessijnse kronieken) is a 1998 novel by

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

n author

Moses Isegawa Moses Isegawa, also known as Sey Wava (born 10 August 1963), is a Ugandan author. He has written novels set against the political turmoil of Uganda, which he left in 1990 for the Netherlands. His debut novel, ''Abyssinian Chronicles'', was first pu ...

Plot

The book is set in Uganda, in the 1970s and '80s. The book follows the life of narrator Mugezi Muwaabi, as he plots his own independence from his parents and capitalizes on his considerable natural resources of charm and intelligence. A grandfather, a father and his son are the three figures that form a tripod from which the novel is set. Grandpa represents the traditional order, his son Serenity the chaos of transition, and Mugezi the despair of a younger generation over the dead end of transition and its own prospects. Rootless and bitter, Mugezi flees to Europe from Uganda. The first part of the book centres on Mugezi, a young man growing up in post-colonial Uganda. Born in 1961, a year before Uganda attained independence, Mugenzi describes a troubled childhood living under the tyranny and strict rules of his parents. The family moves to Kampala, the nation's capital about the time Idi Amin comes to power in 1971. In the second half of the book Mugezi is excited about the country's prospects under Idi Amin, following the ouster of Milton Obote and his corrupt government. Soon, however, Amin's regime descends to the depths of brutality and mismanagement – starting with a botched "Africanization" campaign that leads to the expulsion of thousands of Asian businessmen.

Critical reception

The book received both positive and negative reviews. Richard Eder of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said : ''Abyssinian Chronicles'' suffers from a disabling split. It is best as a chronicle of Ugandan history and of the struggles of different generations of a family to cope with it. It is weakest as a third world bildungsroman. Anderson Tepper in a review in ''Salon'' noted: "''Abyssinian Chronicles'' doesn’t quite synthesize the jumble. Instead, the reader is left, like Mugezi at the end, alone, a bit wobbly and haunted from such a long journey."

Maya Jaggi Maya Jaggi is a British writer, literary critic , editor and cultural journalist.Maya Jaggi profi ...

in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' wrote: "Abyssinian Chronicles may lack the sedate control of distance, but it has a momentum and energy that derive from the trauma it tells from the inside."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abyssinian chronicles 1998 novels Ugandan novels Postcolonial novels Kumusha 1998 debut novels