Reading novels from Tanzania, in anticipating some travel for work there in coming months. Enjoyed this sprawling saga on a boy who grows up in Kilwa, half-Indian half-African, ends up becoming a successful doctor in Canada, and returns 30 years later. A small framing story, not really necessary, has a publisher listening to his story, with a view to bringing it to print. The novel covers about 100 years of Swahili coast history, which was nice for me. But as a literary work, the occasional magical realism, the poorly developed characters (Kamal’s mother, for example, is never really given any depth, perhaps correctly, since she i recounted form the view of the child who left her as an adolescent). Saida, remarkably, as a central element of the story, remains just a construction of Kamal’s childhood, and the denouement is a serious disappointment for the reader. So overall I would say worth reading if you have some connection to Tanzania.