Dance of the Jakaranda

About the Book

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

1963. Kenya is on the verge of independence from British colonial rule. In the Great Rift Valley, Kenyans of all backgrounds come together in the previously white-only establishment of the Jakaranda Hotel. The resident musician is Rajan Salim, who charms visitors with songs inspired by his grandfather’s noble stories of the railway construction that spawned the Kenya they now know.

One evening, Rajan is kissed by a mysterious woman in a shadowy corridor. Unable to forget the taste of her lavender-flavoured lips, Rajan sets out to find her. On his journey he stumbles upon the murky, shared history of three men – his grandfather, the owner of the Jakaranda and a British preacher – who were implicated in the controversial birth of a child. What Rajan unearths will open his eyes about the birth not just of a child, but of an entire nation.

About the Author

Peter Kimani is an award-winning Kenyan novelist. He was one of three international poets to compose and present a poem for National Public Radio to mark Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. A prominent journalist on Kenya’s national news circuit, Kimani’s work has also appeared in The Guardian, New African and Sky News. He teaches journalism at the Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications in Nairobi, and is presently the Visiting Writer at Amherst College in the United States. Kimani was awarded the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for literature, Kenya’s highest literary honour, in 2011. Dance of the Jakaranda was longlisted for The People’s Book Prize and The Big Book Prize in 2018.

Reviews

‘In this racially charged dance of power, the railroad into the interior of the country becomes a journey into the hearts of men and women. It is a dance of love and hate and mixed motives that drive human actions and alter the course of history. Kimani’s writing has the clarity of analytic prose and the lyrical tenderness of poetry.’
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, author of Birth of a Dream Weaver

‘This funny, perceptive and ambitious work of historical fiction by a Kenyan poet and novelist explores his country’s colonial past and its legacy … Kimani has done a game job managing the carpentry of this ambitious novel, bringing great skill to the task of deploying multiple story lines, huge leaps back and forth in time and the withholding and distribution of information ... I have never read a novel about [Kenya] that’s so funny, so perceptive, so subversive and so sly.’
New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice

‘A rich tableau of layers and textures. The book has some brilliant moments of vivid and evocative writing.’
Huffington Post

‘Kimani illustrates the discordant history of East Indians in Kenya through a fabulously complicated set of intriguing characters and events … Highlighted by its exquisite voice, Kimani’s novel is a standout debut.’
Publishers’ Weekly

‘Brilliantly construed … an important novel.’
Historical Novel Society

‘A memorable family drama set against radical social changes in pre-independence Kenya.’
Asian Review of Books

‘Lyrical and powerful … Kimani weaves together a bitter, hurtful past and hopeful present in this rich tale of Kenyan history and culture, the railroad, and the men and women whose lives it profoundly affected.’
Kirkus