I am a slow reader, easily intimidated by the 500-page tomes that many others seem to devour by the month. But if the characters are intriguing and book is structured well – lean chapters building momentum, heightening anticipation – then I become hooked. A great example is We Are All Birds Of Uganda (WAABOU), the debut novel by Hafsa Zayyan.
A richly evocative and accomplished piece of work. WAABOU tells the story of young London-based lawyer Sameer as he struggles to reconcile his East African Asian heritage, Muslim faith and a culture that demands dutifulness, with fulfilling his own ambitions and pursuing a personal definition of success.
Running in parallel with this main story is a series of candid love letters from his grandfather Hasan, which help to explain how Sameer and his family found their way to Leicester. The hopes they carried, the loss they bear.
These missives take us from the prosperous early 20th Century in Uganda, through rising tensions with indigenous Africans, to the expulsion under Amin (when 50,000 were ejected almost overnight in 1972), experiencing racism in Britain and struggling with the lingering effects of displacement as twice migrants. Rejected by the only place you ever knew as home, not accepted by your adopted one. Migration offers hope but it also brings loss.
For this novel, Hafsa drew on her own experiences as the child of a Nigerian father and Pakistani mother. They came to the UK to seek a better life and endured their own struggles. The author felt burdened by the pressure to be a model daughter and high achiever as she was representing the whole family. (Her husband Riaz also provided inspiration as his family had direct experience of the expulsion.)
Zayyan’s writing channels these emotions, breathing depth into each character through their mannerisms and feelings. How “Mhota Papa’s eyes light up, they always do when talk turns to Uganda.” for instance.
The descriptions of Uganda – "where nandi flame trees sport bright red flowers, guava fruit hands from swollen branches, and small purple buds sit shyly among the green leaves of jacaranda that are almost beginning to blossom" – illustrate how a homeland becomes so integral to one’s identity. In fact, belonging is a key theme in this book and one that many of us are interrogating at the moment, especially the children of immigrants.
My mother grew up in Kampala and was expelled by Amin. I studied law and then walked away, clashed with parents over generational differences – the closed-mindedness and lingering prejudice – yearned for self-determination, felt the guilt… There are many parallels.
I have been that boy, talked about as if he's not in the room, the child reduced to what he studies and the profession he should enter, his whole life mapped out, parents pinning happiness on the success of that child. Perhaps that's why I was swept up in the story and race through the book to find out what happens to the young lawyer.
I was heartened by how Sameer has the strength to follow his own path, yet he also finds peace and comfort in exploring his history and embracing his faith. It is this path that could lead him to a new level of understanding. A homecoming in the truest sense.
We Are All Birds Of Uganda is published by Merky Books. Hafsa Zayyan was the joint winner of the imprint’s New Writer’s Prize in 2019.
