Novel
The Looming Shadow
Legson Kayira · 1967
Synopsis
In a village in colonial Nyasaland, Matenda wanted to seduce Nachele, his wife's younger sister; the elders opposed it and Nachele married Musyani, who from then on became his enemy. When Matenda falls ill, his family and the healer Simbwindimbwi accuse Musyani of having bewitched him, a fault that custom punishes by fire. The chief Mwenimuzi, authoritarian and fearful of the arrival of the colonial authorities, seeks to settle the matter by a forbidden poison ordeal.
Context
The first novel by its author, it was published in 1967 by Doubleday, in Garden City, near New York, two years after the account of his journey on foot to America. With David Rubadiri and Aubrey Kachingwe, Kayira was one of the first novelists of Malawi, and like them he lived in exile after independence. The book sets the customary justice of the village, which punishes the sorcerer by fire, against colonial law, and its chief tries to play one against the other; fear and violence spread through the village.
Who it is for
A short novel of about one hundred and forty pages, in English; the whole plot takes place in a single village.
Prizes and reception
At his death, the press judged that he would be remembered above all for his 1965 memoirs, more than for his novels.
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