Mambo Leo (Current Affairs)

By John Coutouvidis
Published by The Electronic Book Company
$1.99 Rating: Not yet rated.
Published: June 17, 2011
Words: 19,239 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781458144751

Short description

Mambo Leo (Current Affairs) is a satire on the subject of genocide. The play is set in East Africa but is based on the East European crisis during the diplomatic prelude to the Second World War. It is written for a Swahilophone college audience but its appeal is universal.

Extended description

MAMBO LEO (CURRENT AFFAIRS)

A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS

The play takes its title from a Swahili paper which appeared in Arusha, Tanganyika, where I was raised. It is set in East Africa during early 1960’s; the years of transition between the ending of colonial rule and the advent of full independence; when the last metropolitan adviser went home. (Read more) MAMBO LEO (CURRENT AFFAIRS)

A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS

The play takes its title from a Swahili paper which appeared in Arusha, Tanganyika, where I was raised. It is set in East Africa during early 1960’s; the years of transition between the ending of colonial rule and the advent of full independence; when the last metropolitan adviser went home.

It is about the exercise of realpolitik by fictional statesmen in imaginary states. It should, however, be noted that much of the action takes place in a geologically and politically active region along the East African Rift; nowhere else in Africa compares to its potential for physical violence. There is a reality, too, in the text; much of it is based on actual telegrams daily charting the diplomatic prelude to the eruption of war in 1939 within the East European region; nowhere else are political fault lines so likely to slip into movements of mass terror.

In sections dealing with diplomatic history I base my story on events in Europe as recorded in the published Documents on British Foreign Policy, substituting real Europeans by entirely imagined East Africans acting out their fictional roles in countries and cities which today (with the exception of the mythical Tanganyika, featured in my novel, God of Hunger/ Mungu Wa Nja,) still retain their colonial names.

Nevertheless, I wish to emphasise that no direct reference to post independent states, statesmen, or capitals should be read into my political fantasies. I have simply written them in the belief that the principles of diplomacy, born in relations between Ancient Greek city states, remain universally applicable.

Purists of the language must excuse my usage of Swahili. It is of the up-country variety. Nevertheless, Mambo Leo is written mainly with a Swahili speaking audience in mind; an audience which not only inhabits a vast swathe of East Africa, but also a diaspora stretching westwards from Beijing to Calgary, via Moscow, London and Toronto; there are now as many Swahilophones in and around London as there were in Arusha, Tanganyika, when the author left for the UK in 1963, first to read and then to teach History at university; it is mainly for an undergraduate audience that the play was written.

This book is part of a trilogy in honour of Thioneesos (Dionysus) whose feast days in ancient Greece required the staging of two dramatics and a satiric. In my offering these are presented as The Kidron Bible, God of Hunger and Mambo Leo.

Together, they constitute The Wanainchi Trilogy.

John Coutouvidis

June 2011
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Tags

african politics, african play, colonial africa, post independent africa, africa post independence, tanganyika politics, tanganyikan politics, tanganyikan independence, african drama

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