John Speke comes to Uganda to study education at Makerere University as part of a British aid program to provide post-colonial East Africa with the teachers it so desperately needs.
There he meets Mutima, a young member of the Baganda tribe, related to their royal family, and her brother Jonah, a political activist standing against the oppressive regimes of Milton Obote and later Idi Amin.
As John and Mutima's relationship grows, the young Englishman finds himself inadvertently drawn ever deeper into Jonah's campaign of civil unrest, culminating in a failed attempt to overthrow Amin himself.
Imprisoned in Uganda's notorious Makindye Prison, John is beaten, humiliated, and finally broken. To his shame, he gives his brutal captors Jonah's whereabouts.
An unknown benefactor arranges John's release, but his prison experiences leave deep emotional scars. Filled with guilt and self-loathing, John declares his contempt for Africa and all its people-including Jonah, Mutima, and John's own unborn child.
But once safely back in the United Kingdom, John's guilt festers. Faced with the specter of his own mortality, following a near fatal heart attack, he returns to Uganda, hoping to reconcile with the woman he loved and the child he's never met-a young girl called Malaika.
About the Author: James A. Anderson was born in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. After graduating from Aberdeen University in 1967 with an M.A. with Honors in Geography, he continued his education in Uganda. There he earned a diploma in education from Makerere University.
After serving two years as an education officer with the Kenyan government, Anderson relocated to New Zealand, first as a teacher, then as a town planner. He eventually returned to Shetland as the deputy director and, later, as director of planning.
Anderson returned to New Zealand in 1997 as the district planner for Dunedin. He later ran a planning consultancy business.
Anderson's Viking heritage inspired his passion for world travel. He has visited 107 of the 195 UN member nations and published two travel books: To the New 7 Wonders of the World and More New Wonders of the World.
