They themselves
Those on whom the plane threw its deadly gifts were waving to it when they were children.
They pray for rain
And they die of thirst.
* * *
You are additional scarecrows for the birds
You guard the wheat
And you frighten the birds that seek to sit
No chrome theft!
You guard the wheat
My brothers
But you go to sleep hungry...
نقياً كأنه روح (كتاب) تساعد الإنسان في اكتساب السكينة والسلام كي يعيش حياته اليومية بأقل قدر من الآلام .. هي عدد من الإشراقات أثمرتها الروح في لحظة صفاء أو معاناة.. تنفض الغبار عن أخلاقيات منسية وتضيء الطريق نحو التنوّر في عصر مضطرب لا يهدأ .
Retired teacher Pius Fernandez receives from one of his students an old notebook found in the back room of a shop in East Africa. It turns out to be the diary of a British officer who lived seven decades ago in the small town of Kikono. The diary captivates the teacher, and he tries to recreate the world in it, and breathe life into the souls trapped there, discovering a dark, burning secret, the secret of a simple man named “Pippa” whose life, after his marriage to “Mariamo,” became painfully linked to the life of the English officer. As Fernandez follows the diary's trail, he himself eventually becomes one of the tales of the Book of Secrets.
In this novel, which won the Giller Prize in its first edition, in 1994, Vasanji writes an influential work rich in questions, about a very rich and complex world, vibrant with colorful images, against the backdrop of great historical changes.
I do not know if what I am going to narrate has happened before, or if it is happening today, this hour, now, this moment. Or will it happen later, tomorrow or the next day, very soon or very far away? But, I know, it always happens. where? In the world, here, there and everywhere, but what matters to me is that it is happening here in this place, my country, and in the city that I could not leave, for countless reasons. The city that, I repeat, I cannot die away from, nor can I live away from it. with whom? With me, it is the first answer, because it is known about me that I only write about myself, or something that happened with another person I know well, or perhaps with a person I know briefly, or with a person I created from a mixture of people, or a person I made up completely. However, as a technical solution to this dilemma, I see that this time, it happened to you specifically, you who are now reading what I write and suspect that it is about you, then little by little you will know that it is about you. Because literally, or almost literally, it happened to you, and it applies to you only.