Afterlives

“He had lived away from his parents for most of his life […] Their sudden passing seemed a catastrophe, a judgment on him. He was living a useless life in a town that was not his home, in a country that seemed to be constantly at war, with reports of yet another uprising in the South and West.

It was then that Amur Biashara [businessman] spoke to him.”

Khalifa is the first of several important characters in the narrative to be orphaned or who loses a significant family member. The loneliness and angst he feels at this moment—which he experiences as a “catastrophe”—initiates the motif of Unspoken Similarities in the novel, as several of the other main characters will also experience loss, abandonment, and/or alienation. The reference to the “country that seemed to be constantly at war” also alludes to The Oppression of Colonized People and the colonial wars Tanzania will get repeatedly trapped in.

“Khalifa knew that the merchant was making him a gift of her, and that the young woman was not going to have much to say in the matter […] Khalifa agreed to the arrangement because he did not think he could refuse and because he desired it […] They did not meet before the wedding or even at the wedding. The ceremony was a simple affair […] After the ceremony coffee was served and then Khalifa was accompanied by the merchant himself to her house and introduced to his new wife. The house was the property Asha Fuadi inherited, only she did not inherit it.”

This passage reflects The Subordination of Women in the novel, as Asha’s plight embodies many of the legal and social disadvantages faced by Tanzanian women. Asha lacks agency and is treated as property, with her uncle “making a gift of her” to a man he has chosen as her spouse without seeking or needing Asha’s consent to the match. To further emphasize Asha’s powerlessness over her own fate, she is not even present at her own wedding. The concluding line of the passage alludes to the fact that Asha has been cheated out of her rightful inheritance by her uncle, leaving her all the more at his mercy.