The Metamorphosis of a Country | The Daily Star
The Old Drift (Hogarth Press, 2020), taken from Vigil's 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 Serphell's novel, the civilisation is Zambia, the Lethe's 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 Drift tells the story of the country through the eyes of three generations: The Grandmothers, The...
Source: thedailystar.net