Since the end of 2005, I have been participating in a reading challenge whereby the participants are attempting to read a book by an author (or if there isn’t one translated into English, about the country) for each of the 200+ countries participating in the 2008 Summer Olympics. We have until the end of the Beijing Games to finish our reading. My thirty first is “Abyssinian Chronicles: A Novel” the debut novel by Ugandan author Moses Isegawa.

Isegawa was born in Kampala, the capitol of Uganda and emigrated to The Netherlands in 1990 where he now resides.

The story of “Abyssinian Chronicles: A Novel” takes place in the chaotic Uganda of the 1940’s – 1990’s. It relates the saga of narrator Mugezi’s life and family in the midst of a splintering country. Uganda was shattered by multiple regime changes, differences among practitioners of Protestant, Catholic and Muslim religions, animosities between clans in the north and south/east and west, and ethnic strife among Africans, British and Indians. Mugezi is a survivor – first of his despotic parents, then of his taskmasters at the seminary, the guerilla warfare and finally of the utter breakdown of his family, village and nation. The tale is told amidst the backdrop of love, sex, AIDS, and death. Despite the cycles of destruction people just want to live a life of peace and hope.