Greetings,
Hope this finds you well. This is just a short one to pass along the attached review of my novel, The Men Do Not Eat Wings.
Cheers,
Were. _______________________
A feast of morsels
The Men Do Not Eat Wings SW Omamo 2004 Richardson-Omamo Books, Kampala, Uganda 221 pages
Reviewed by Richard Bartlett
Much is often made of an apparent clash-of-cultures in African societies, of western values conflicting with African traditions and the two existing in some sort of unhappy compromise where neither is dominant and both are in constant danger of being overwhelmed by the other: Africa corrupting the benefits of modernisation and resorting to chaos or western culture eradicating traditional philosophies and overwhelming its cultures. The Men Do Not Eat Wings is a novel which mixes contemporary corruption, colonial adventures and the African diaspora in a multitude of little stories which show how such a bifurcated view of contemporary Africa fails to acknowledge the wealth of experience from the continent and its place in the wider world.
Luka Sollo is brutally murdered, his body dismembered and strewn around his estate in western Kenya. He is one of the country’s wealthy businessmen, and one with political connections so there is much wailing at his funeral, and the police are quick to solve the case. One of Sollo’s workers, a squatter on his farm, is arrested, charged and found guilty of the murder. But the family know the truth behind the murder – know that Sollo’s links with entrepreneurs of ill repute and corrupt politicians is the real reason for his death. And so this is the beginning of another political thriller set in an African country where the rule of law flaunted, as the family track down the real culprits, see that justice is done and put things right, as their ‘Omamo drops crumbs from a multitude of stories and gradually leads the reader to point where one can grasp the extent of Kenyan experience in the contemporary world’ father would have wanted. Well, not quite.
The Men Do Not Eat Wings is a story of Kenya, one which takes giant leaps back through history and places the present in sharp focus through the lives of one family. But again it would be a mistake to classify this as a historical novel or a family epic – its central focus is the way and means in which one extended family struggles to come to terms with what the death of the patriarch means. It is also about the history of one family stretching back to the days when missionaries were leading the way which colonial administrators and educationists would follow. But above all it is a story of modern Kenya, of families living in the diaspora, of living in a country where the head of state is known as The Stork, of working one’s whole life for a patronising racist, of living in wealth with poverty knocking at your door, of confronting corruption as bureaucrat and as citizen, and it is about creating and appreciating beauty.
Omamo has created a story that is disturbingly pleasant to read. It follows no straight lines, either in time or space. Even the logic of the title is only revealed in the closing pages, and it all has to do with amalgamation of cultures. Omamo tells two stories simultaneously, one from a distance where readers can follow events in Kenya, and the other where we struggle to work out the familial relationships and dynamics, and what this has to do with the bigger picture. The masterfulness of The Men Do Not Eat Wings comes from the subtlety with which Omamo drops crumbs from the multitude of stories and gradually leads the reader to point where one can grasp the extent of Kenyan experience in the contemporary world.
But one must read this book, not just for its meandering through quotidian Kenya, but more for its journey through the variety of lives that distract a neat, linear plot and show how the importance of life is in the small stories, as Omamo says in a preamble to the tale: "We know so few of our own stories. I don’t mean the big stories told about us every day on the BBC World Service for Africa. I mean the small ones…like mine." The first small story, told as titbits dropped ahead of each instalment that make up the book, is of a father struggling to connect with his adult children. These titbits leap through the life of one Kenyan family adapting to life in the USA, and then as an American family adapting to life in Kenya. This diaspora matrix is probably autobiographical as Omamo is an economist who now lives and works in the United States, having previously studied and worked in Kenya and Uganda.
Beyond the diaspora matrix lies the story of Kenya, of corrupt politicians and businessmen whose dealings led directly to the death of Luka Sollo. But what makes the work intriguing is that the story from then on, from when we know who committed the murder, is not about solving the crime – it is about how the family deals with the patriarch's death. How the extended family, spread around the world, must come together to mourn their loss. Yet the murder is a catalyst which Omamo uses to unwrap layers of history, of story. Apart from the family dealing with the murder and its reasons, Omamo tells of the family’s ancestors, of a gullible missionary being led through 18th century central Africa by a group of newly arrived Indians, of the transformation from village life in the Rift Valley to life as a farm worker for a South African boss.
Based on his father’s suspicions before he was murdered, Luka Sollo’s son Saks publishes a book ‘The Truth about the Sollo Murder’. The book is banned and Saks thrown in prison. Even in this apparent fight for justice there are no neat conclusions. What makes the episode so striking is the description of life in prison, the casual sexual violence, and then the throng in the bar where jail, corruption, bureaucracy, trade and racism are all related by a cross-section of Nairobi’s citizens. But resolution comes not through justice, but through a more mundane decision to put family priorities ahead of retribution or corporate needs.
Omamo has created a work that defies neat categorisation, that reflects his dual existence between America and Africa, but, more significantly, portrays the realities of modern Africa without recourse to platitudes or facile, predictable story lines. There are not many economists who venture into the realm of fiction (no puns intended) and in doing so Omamo has managed to turn dry facts of economic imperatives into a tale of human interaction. His professional expertise often creeps through, such that Kenya is not just a case of economic incompetence and hopelessness, but a country and a people who also get up and go to work every day, who experience hardship and beauty, and smile at the fathomless joy of a child learning to play a harp. Richard Bartlett is editor of the African Review of Books
- Steven Were Omamo joined IFPRI and the 2020 Vision Network in 2002. Prior to joining IFPRI, Omamo was a Research Fellow with ISNAR, leading a project at the Eastern and Central Africa Program for Agricultural Policy Analysis (ECAPAPA) on "Strengthening Agricultural Policies and Institutions in Eastern Africa: Agricultural Innovation Systems". Omamo's previous positions include serving as research scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute, technical advisor at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, lecturer at Egerton University in Kenya, and consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation. His research interests revolve around the economics of small-scale farming. Omamo received a bachelor's degree in agricultural business from California State University in 1986, a master's degree in agricultural economics from the University of Connecticut in 1988, a master's degree in international development policy from the Food Research Institute (FRI) at Stanford University in 1992, and a PhD in agricultural economics from FRI in 1995.