Enjoyed this sprawling family saga, A History of Burning by Janika Oza. A boy from Gujarat is tricked into become an indentured servant building the Mombasa-Kampala railroad around 1900. After the end of his work, he remains and hardscrabbles a new life. His granddaughter Latika becomes a central figure for most of the book, as the descendants move to Canada after the Amin expulsion of 1972. If you liked the bittersweet coda of Mira Nair’s film Mississippi Masala you’ll definitely want to read this book.
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Recent Posts
- Reading Nov-Dec 2025 and Jan 2026
- AI as an existential threat – Kevane preliminary draft
- “What can it do?” A living list of computational problems that deep learning/AI/neural nets can or seems likely to “do” (at varying cost and efficacy)
- Reading August-September 2025
- The typical popular sci-fi version of AI posing an existential risk?
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Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)- Visite du Centre de Lecture et d’Études de Béréba par le coordonnateur de ABVBF
- Animation d’une séance de lect ure à la bibliothèque de Bougounam
- Annual report for 2025 of partner organization in Burkina Faso ABVBF
- Actions récents de l’animateur de ABVBF, Burkina Faso
- Animation d’u e séance de discussion à la bibliothèque de Niankorodugou
- Rencontre d’une équipe de Amis des Bibliothèques de Villages du Burkina Faso (ABVBF) avec le DPEPPNF du Tuy
- Rapport de mission de l’équipe de ABVBF au CEG de Dossi
- Rapport de sortie à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy, Burkina Faso
- Rapport de sortie à la bibliothèque de Dohoun
- Préparation d’un don de livres CMH aux élèves du CEG de Dossi