London

2 January 1976

Dear Zeke

Of course I still remember you, and have had news of you, where you are, what you are doing, from time to time.

I didn't know you had been to South Africa. That must have been a mixed experience.

My brother, my oldest son, my daughter, are all in Rhodesia and South Africa, fervent supporters of Smith etc. Which makes family relations complicated to say the least.

South Africans seem to be much more realistic than white Rhodesians. Who all live in some mad dream world.

Anyway I posted off your book just before Christmas so it ought to arrive fairly soon. I like it a good deal. I can understand the criticisms of the structure, which does not make for easy reading. I don't know if this will strike you as absurd: I wondered how much an oral tradition contributed to that structure – the leisurely approach from different points of view. The real trouble with the book, as you have doubtless seen, is that it criticizes African States. I have not discussed this with Heinemann, but am prepared to bet that the thinking would go something like this: hard enough to get an African series going, and to get support for it – to publish a book making such criticisms of Kaunda, it is asking for trouble. Perhaps I am wrong and they aren't thinking like this at all. I sum up your book like this: that it is every bit as good and better than some of the novels they have published. Why then is it not being published?

I have not read all the books in the African series: it sounds as if I have.

It seems to me that if you have the energy and inclination you might rewrite it, making the shape of the thing tighter? The subject is fascinating. To me, at least. Precisely what might be making it hard to publish now – the criticisms of a Third World country, may be just what could make it a success at a different time, in a different context.

There is always the same problem with all novels so much embedded in an African context: they ought to be read by Africans within the country in question. Yet it is unlikely they will be read.