Kololo Hill

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This book, with its beautiful writing and complex characters, shows us exactly what happened and how things had changed. How you adapt to a completely different culture and country where the welcome is as warm as the weather. Poignantly showcasing the struggles, heartbreak and jarring motion of the devastatingly upheaving lives. 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. Uganda comes alive in the capable hands of the author, the smells, the feel and the food, and in England their experience is, of course, discombobulatingly different.

Asha, his wife, is opinionated and assertive, doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the privilege they hold, and determined to create a better life in England after the nightmare she witnessed back in Uganda. In all honesty, I was pretty ignorant about the history of expulsions of Asian minority from Uganda under the President of Uganda, Idi Amin.The growing tensions of their life in Kampala are the subject of the first half of the book and the stakes are necessarily high. The vulnerable depart for the last planes out of Entebbe airport, having been furtive captives in their own homes. Kololo Hill is an important read, it’s about a period of history that many people know little about.

Just to give you a background about why these Asians even went to Kampala, they didn't choose to go there, they were rather forced to go to Uganda by the British under indentured labor contracts to work on the construction of the Ugandan Railways. The novel is brilliant in that it highlights the trauma and pain that many South Asian families faced during this time in an emotive manner that truly is a heart-wrenching tale to read! This book has inspired me to read more around this topic, though I suspect it's not going to be easy to find many novels set at that time and in that place. Neema Shah evokes Amin’s Uganda and early 1970s suburban England with both nuance and a fresh and wonderful vivacity. 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 character dynamics are fascinating, there is a richness to each relationship and each of them have a complexity that makes for a vivid and immersive story. It's beautifully written, addresses a time and situation that many people know little about and asks a lot of questions about what you're supposed to do when somebody tells you to "Go back home" but you can't, because home doesn't exist any more.

Straddling two different albeit interlinked worlds, Shah crafts the story of a family who is forced to leave their home, start over, and then wonder if it was worth it - given the lukewarm welcome they've received.Before I begin this review, let me clear one thing- even with my rating, would I still recommend this book? Like many families, Pran and Asha face being separated, unlike the rest of the family, Pran does not have a British passport.