The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
(Canongate Books) by Moyez Vassanji
From a 'safe-house' on the snow-covered shores of Lake Ontario, Vikram Lall contemplates from self-exile the life that caused him to be called 'one of Africa's most corrupt men'. His story begins in 1953, in a colonial Kenya preparing to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Eight-year-old Vic Lall is trying to work out where he fits in relation to his Kikuyu best friend Njoroge, who is in love with his little sister Deepa, and their two white friends Bill and Annie Bruce.
Fear rules the world of adults in the town of Nakuru, with the Mau Mau waging a guerrilla war against white settlers and the British-controlled police countering with round-ups, beatings, torture and disappearances. Vic's parents make what they can of the vicissitudes of life as Asians in Africa.
The story builds slowly before the focus shifts to Nairobi and an independent Kenya in which Vic, avowedly apolitical, finds himself useful as a discreet go-between in the traffic of American cash to the country's greedy African masters, rising to become a trusted bagman for independence leader Jomo Kenyatta. Vic's drift into corruption is inexorable. A surprisingly gentle book of brutal acts and everyday betrayals.