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In INHERITED DANGER, a ruthless activist-turned-politician must get married to her dead husband’s brother to save her organisation from the schemes of a shrewd competitor. Aftermath takes place in the guerilla-controlled Northern Uganda. Four girls fleeing into the forest to avoid being turned into sex slaves run into a bigger danger. In MONI AFINDA, a middle-aged brand manager carries the memories of her father’s failures into her business. She must win a contract at all costs and succeed because she cannot repeat her father’s mistakes. In KICHOROCHORO, a tumult of personal tragedies pushes a young social worker into the frontier of doom without a back-up plan. She throws herself into her work of reshaping the lives of ragamuffin homeless boys in a dangerous Nairobi slum. RUDE AWAKENING is about the return of Ajuang Nyar Kadem, the famous femme fatale in Luo lore. The haunting cinema-esque HAPPY 9TH BIRTHDAY is about a nine-year-old girl who is sexually abused by her father and its horrific aftermath. She throws the spanner into the works and into a nightmare of suspense and stark terror. The two last stories are about elderly musicians in a changing world. KISS YA BANGONGI is set in the degenerate world of Congolese music and demonstrates that chasing greatness spurs doubt, self hatred, failure, and pain especially when the conditions for greatness are deemed by the sort of egotistical man the protagonist is. In FIRST AND SECOND RHYTHM GUITARS IN AN OLD BENGA SONG, an old benga guitarist must drop his personal principles and give benga music a facelift in order to save it from extinction before he dies. The two stories are linked inextricably to innovation in the guitar music, to chord changes, and voiced heartaches.

CHAPTER EXCERPT

IT IS MARCH AGAIN. Odongo's mind is filled with wisps of memories, red and black silhouettes fast receding, no longer forming their story, leaving only a faint nervous residue of terror.

Recently he took a depraved break to lead a phantom life after Opiyo’s death. And still, he is in a stupor, like a man waking from a hellacious dream. October is coming with its bitter memories that make him feel this strange incredible force like the hand of the devil on the back of his head. Like a terrible phantasm. Isn’t it some kind of a miracle? That after all these years, he is still alive and limping along. Older now. Far more worldlier. Wiser, even. He rides a beat-up Raleigh bicycle with his good leg and his bad leg to Russia. His hands are callused and his face is now a man’s face, and his hair is no longer the shaggy sunburnt Afro, the colour of cow dung.

Life and Kisumu have made him paranoid. Like a Kisumuan of old, he has always hated Russia. Everything is full of memories of doom, mangy things, death. In March 2001, Kisumu is a new world. A city hundreds of times bigger than the postcolonial municipality of the 1970s, a once-serene town where the morning sunlight caressed your skin with its gentle sweetness. Which had classy establishments such as Mayfair, Wimpy, Mona Lisa, Sikh Union et cetera. Where your mother sent you on rundo gi rego maize buying and milling errand at Pong Aida posho mill in Kibuye with the strict instruction, “Don’t line up after ja bel—someone with millet.” It has today transformed into a bustling cosmopolitan haven, surpassing even the vibrancy of Kampala. The lively streets, modest buildings and happy faces tell tales of diverse origins, coming like a song on the radio.

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