It really made me appreciate and value what it means to migrate to a place you may not necessarily have ever envisioned yourself living in. Shah does a wonderful job of explaining the history and also her descriptions of Uganda were spot on, I could picture Entebbe in particular very clearly and her use of Swahili and Luganda dropped in were great. This last threat is where the novel begins, when Asha, a new bride, unwittingly stumbles across the terrifying evidence of just how far Amin’s forces will go to enforce their power in Uganda. The novel is assiduous in the detail of their lives - the conversations, the climate, the assumed day-to-day routine of their existence, rendered in beautifully cinematic prose.

Still, this book gives an excellent account of the challenges facing Indian East African families leaving to go live in the West. Asha and Pran are newly weds and just as they begin their journey along with Pran’s family, they are faced with expulsion that may possibly separate them and with every secret, every shock that comes, things get more complex and serious once they are faced with the fact that they cannot escape this expulsion and they must leave the house forever.The love story element that flickers between Asha and Vijay is fine, but standard fare after the much more emotionally charged scenes unfolding in the Ugandan section. I could see so many faces of people I know through them all - the aunties who never really got to grips with English and the aunties that did, the elders who embraced living in the UK and the ones who just couldn’t quite manage it. I don't have a creative writing BA or MA and I didn't start writing my first novel until I was in my late thirties. Reading about African Indians felt comforting for me because of my own family’s migration from India to Kenya to England and it makes me wish I knew my own family’s history better. Pran, having rescued the family business from his good-natured but woefully lackadaisical father Motichand, is at last approaching some semblance of economic success, giving the family the material comforts that some in the area can only dream about.

The second half of Kololo Hill focuses on the family’s attempts to settle into their new lives in the UK.A very powerful storyline — a family displaced from their home and struggling to get on with their new life continuously being haunted by the ghost of their pasts and mistakes they’ve made. This is a topical novel with 2022 being the fiftieth anniversary of the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by Idi Amin. Kololo Hill” is a testament to the enduring human spirit in the face of adversity and a reminder of the importance of remembering and honoring the stories of those who have experienced displacement and upheaval. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

I appreciate the effort the author takes to present a balanced perspective, the class divide and rift between Asians and Ugandans further exacerbated by the growing disparity between the rich and poor.Their journey is evoked by language, culture shock and all the challenges of moving to another country. An impressive, confident debut about family and survival, against the backdrop of a history that is not written about often enough. Her words will keep you hooked from the beginning, take you on a trip to the radiant land of Uganda and make you wonder what home really means to you. I wish African schools went out of their way to teach the history of various African nations, there is so much to unpack, learn and understand, I remain thankful that reading is a beloved hobby of mine because it allows me to learn beyond and about the world I live in.

I read a LOT of books set in the Indian sub-continent and about the immigrant experience - especially people from that region coming to terms with life in the UK or USA. Its well written, and the passages surrounding forced evacuation and the sudden reality of being a displaced immigrant are memorable.

For those who are unfamiliar with this chapter of Ugandan history, I highly recommend reading a bit about the context before diving into the novel. There were no supporting roles, they were all equal even though they were in-fact facing their own individual journeys. The words within the pages vividly paint the climate and give insight to a time that hasn’t ever really been given attention to when history is being told. Amin’s dictate, motivated by insecurity and greed, was particularly cruel in this regard, giving families only 90 days notice to leave the country, under the threat of rape, internment or, in many cases, murder. Their arrival in the UK brought home the difficulties of arriving in a new country - where everything felt alien.