Chirundu

A burning house. Nsato the python. The symbols of destruction and of sexual power gone mad are two of the many and varied themes in Es'kia Mphahlele's second novel, originally published in 1979.Chimba Chirundu, ex-schoolmaster and now Minister of Transport and Public Works in a newly-independent African country, is brought to trial on a charge of bigamy laid by his wife Tirenje. Arrogant and power-hungry, wilful and morally ambiguous, Chirundu has to grapple with two sets of values: those of the traditional way of life in Africa, and those imposed by his country's erstwhile colonial rulers.A chorus of other voices illuminate this powerful story of corruption and conflict: Tirenje, Chirundu's country wife, whose moral strength derives from her rural roots; the worldly Monde, his town wife; Moyo, his idealistic nephew and the leader of a strike by transport workers; and the cynical Pitso and Letanka, jailed South African refugees.In often pungent language, and in an unmistakeably African idiom, Es'kia Mphahlele reveals the complexities and ambiguities of the post-colonial situation.