The Gunny Sack

Book excerpt: Winner of the 1990 Commonwealth First Novel Prize (Africa). The Gunny Sack follows the bizarre tale of an old and unremarkable bag and the life changing secrets within it. In exile from Tanzania, Salim Juma is given a gunny sack by his beloved, but strange, great-aunt. The bag takes him back to his childhood, when he was first mesmerised by the peculiar mementos inside. He soon begins to piece together the stories hidden within, only to discover the truth behind a fateful series of events that changed his family forever. The stories that follow stretch across four generations of Salim's family, tracing their footsteps and unravelling their loves, betrayals, and incredible misadventures. The Gunny Sack is an extraordinary chronicle into the experiences of Indian migrants in Africa as they struggled under changing power structures, from German invasions to British colonialism.