As a professional interpreter, Nefert works at conferences where Africa’s rulers meet not to solve the continent’s problems, but to resolve to beg for solutions from past and present masters. She knows that under foreign occupation, Africa’s abundant resources were pillaged in a raw export economy that pauperized Africans to enrich invaders. But it saddens her that, after Independence, African rulers did not choose intelligent technological and industrial paths to prosperity, instead of maintaining the destructive globalizing status quo.
Nefert endures her depression in loneliness, until she gets drawn into a circle of highly skilled friends looking, like her, for a key to an African future. Her spirit lifts as the group’s research uncovers an ancient way of knowledge and creative work, long suppressed during the centuries of foreign oppression, but still accessible to seekers ready to read the oldest of African writings.
Armah brings satire and historical facts into a beautifully inspiring tale which places Africa’s future in the hands of Africans ourselves; not any government institution, NGO, or other “well meaning” entities plaguing African people around the world. The satire is classic….see if you can recognize your favorite African writers being lampooned in the chapter “Sessions with the Living Dead”.
