Sometimes a writer has to work really hard to take the reader into another world, crafting and creating wonder out of both imagination and the collective fantastic.
Other times all a writer has to do is write what is familiar to them for an unfamiliar audience.
I think this novella actually does both.
Little Kuri is an abiba, a person of magical ancestry with the power to see thoughts, fly, and create magical objects. After being orphaned, she does her best to embrace her growing powers and find out where she truly belongs.
Uganda, where this book is set and author Dilman Dila is from, is a huge blank space in my head waiting to be filled in. I know virtually nothing about it and Ugandan culture isn’t really Google-able, so there’s a lot in this book that I’m sure I missed. I could sense the references and cultural imagery dancing just beyond my understanding. What tipped it over the line from “I have no idea what’s going on, help!” to “I don’t understand but I want to so let’s keep going!” is the writing. The prose is playful, regal, harsh and blunt by turns. There are quests within quests, missing mothers, magic fathers, places with wonderful names like the Island of Sin and The Forest That Sings. There are all kinds of beings I’ve never heard of, and beings I thought I knew doing utterly surprising things. The writing doesn’t always hit perfectly, but it’s always interesting and kept me turning pages just to stay involved. Also, Dila starts the book with a translanguaging boss move, and that always gets my attention and respect. See below:
This doesn’t mean that there weren’t times when things got a little too strange, even for me. In this book, magic users fight and fly by…okay, sit down for this…farting fire. That is not a metaphor. Our heroine is pejoratively called a “fire-shitter”, and there are dozens of blunt descriptions of fire coming out of people’s butts and being used in various ways.
This is, of course, hilarious.
But I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be. It reads very seriously, and honestly, that’s how far in the woods this book has me–I’m genuinely not sure if I should be giggling at all the flaming booties or cheering them on.
This was interesting despite my total ignorance.
Asbestos toilet paper to A Fledgling Abiba.
(Fellow readers, I don’t think there’s much more to say about this book. There are, however, many more fantasy books from around the world to read, which you can find on the Equal Opportunity Bookshop. Fair warning, though: if you buy anything from that link, or from any other link you find on this website, we’ll earn a small commission. And now that the legal eagle/keeping the internet lights on stuff is out of the way–go and read something good! Peace!)
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