Namwali Serphell News Today

The Old Drift (Hogarth Press, 2020), taken from Vigils The Aeneid, briefly narrates the story of a diverse civilisation thriving on the banks of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness that "somnolently" drifts past a "populous throng" of spirits. In Namwali Serphells novel, the civilisation is Zambia, the Lethes amnesia is the passage of time, and the spirits are a swarm of prophetic mosquitoes. An intergenerational saga leaping from colonial to modern to a near-future Zambia set in 2024, The Old ...