Please Do Not Disturb

The fictional country of Bwalo which is “so small it is impossible to find on a map” is preparing for its Big Day when the great Ngwazi (or king of kings, warrior of warriors, etc.) - otherwise President Tafumo - is due to appear before his subjects in the annual celebration of the country’s freedom from colonial oppression. Also due to take part is American music superstar Truth. The fact that Finance Minister, Patrick Goya, seems to have disappeared in suspicious circumstances is being deliberately quashed.
 
The story is narrated in five different voices. There is young Charlie, the son of the Scottish managers of the Hotel Mirage, who is gifted a Dictaphone and uses it to eavesdrop on adult conversations; Sean, an alcoholic Irishman still trying to write the great African novel; Jack, a poor-white petty criminal; Hope, nurse to the aged President; and Josef, the senior minister who was once the President’s closest friend but is teetering along the tightrope between trust and betrayal.
 
Charlie is a delight and full of a child’s natural curiosity and ease in both embarrassing and even dangerous situations that adults would baulk at. Sean’s narration also contains much humour, especially in his fiery relationship with Stella. Jack, the drug mule caught up in smuggling something more dangerous than his usual weed, is a rather pitiful reflection of what can happen to whites not fortunate enough to have an exit-Africa plan. The sole female narrator, Hope, is also appealing although it can be difficult to reconcile her continued affection for her ex-husband Josef who treated her badly. Josef is the most complex and intriguing narrator. He knows the true story of Tafumo’s past and now risks being eliminated as have others who were part of the loyal founding fathers of the nation but then overstepped the mark in some way and have disappeared. Josef is all too aware that Tafumo has turned into a “witch doctor, who didn’t use roots and blood to mix his magic but potions of people’s hopes, ambitions and dreams”.
 
The descriptions of Truth and his Afro-American dancers, PR facilitators, hangers-on and accompanying reporters provide some of the wittiest passages. They are thoroughly Westernized people who, in spite of their racial heritage, haven’t the first clue how life really is in Africa. Free CDs given to kids who have neither players nor even electricity end up hanging in the trees. As Charlie’s father observes, Truth is exploiting the country’s poverty "to steal the credibility he so desperately lacks”.
 
There are many other vibrant characters who vary from the amusing to the outright deadly. The local DJ is called Cheeseandtoast and the tough brothers, Willem and Eugene Horst, built like "badly baked gingerbread men" carry the blustery echoes of old Rhodesia around with them, men who no longer really fit in with the new Africa yet belong nowhere else either.
 
Bwalo is clearly based on the author’s childhood country of Malawi and the great Ngwazi on its notorious first president, Dr Hastings Banda - with perhaps a touch of Zimbabwe’s nonagenarian Robert Mugabe thrown in - a missionary-educated man who started out as a benevolent shining beacon to his people then becomes corrupted with power and deteriorates into a mockery, yet still remains dangerous and unpredictable.
  
When reading this novel it will definitely be an asset if you have had some experience of living in Africa as its subtleties are likely to resonate more for you than others who have never been charmed or bedeviled by that continent.

A most entertaining and memorable novel from Robert Glancy, and worthy of five stars.

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