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'Matata' means trouble in Swahili. This is a story (based on true events) of a teenage boy growing to manhood, at the same time as Kenya strives for Independence. It takes place in the early 50s during a brutal struggle, initially by mainly one tribe, the Kikuyu, against colonial Britain. Schools and residential areas were segregated by race until 1955. The Mau Mau fighters were driven by British military forces, from the settler-dominated 'White Highlands' first, into 'African...
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'Matata' means trouble in Swahili. This is a story (based on true events) of a teenage boy growing to manhood, at the same time as Kenya strives for Independence. It takes place in the early 50s during a brutal struggle, initially by mainly one tribe, the Kikuyu, against colonial Britain. Schools and residential areas were segregated by race until 1955. The Mau Mau fighters were driven by British military forces, from the settler-dominated 'White Highlands' first, into 'African Locations' in urban areas, and then, into the servants' quarters of non-Africans, pursued relentlessly by security forces. Lando, (protagonist) a Catholic Goan, attends an Indian high school adjacent to the African areas and later enrolls in the first multiracial college in Kenya. In a chance meeting after graduation as an architect, he meets the irresistibly beautiful, bi-racial, Saboti. The intertwined stories of political and ethnic strife, cultural differences and forbidden love, are set against the history and natural beauty of Kenya.