Unbury our dead with song Mukoma Wa Ngugio

UNBURY OUR DEAD WITH SONG BY MUKOMA WA NGUGI

Paperback published by cassava Republic Press 29th June 2021

the first time you heard a Tizita that was yours, you fell in love with it. You never forget your first love; you never forget your first Tizita.”

In the heart of Nairobi, four musicians – The Diva, The Taliban Man, The Corporal and 70-year-old bartender Miriam – gather for a once in a lifetime competition, to see who can perform the best Tizita. In the audience is tabloid journalist John Thandi Manfredi, who is enthralled by their renditions of the Ethiopian blues.

Desperate to learn more, he follows the musicians back to Ethiopia, hoping to uncover the secret to this haunting music. Manfredi’s search takes him from the idyllic Ethiopian countryside to vibrant juke joints and raucous parties in Addis Ababa, set to a soundtrack of stirring Tizita performances.

From the humble domesticity behind the Diva’s glamorous façade, to the troubling question of the Corporal’s military service past, Manfredi discovers that the many layers to this musical genre are reflected in the lives and secrets of its performers.

A love letter to beauty, music and the imagination, Unbury Our Dead with Song captures how it feels have an encounter with the sublime.

Extract from Unbury Our Dead With Song

Chapter Seven

Have you ever had to kill love?

I started with The Diva. She was sitting on a bench in the dressing room, among the left over boxing gear. Her perfume wafting in the room felt alien layered over the enduring smell of men and sweat. She had changed into blue jeans, a white T-shirt and dirty brown sneakers. All around her were shiny plastic bags full of clothes and other things she had bought in Nakumatt and Westgate Malls to take back to Ethiopia. She looked taller than she had on stage.

I guess this is not exactly Broadway. Have you ever been? I asked, half apologising for the ABC and half to talk over the awkwardness I was feeling.

‘Why would I have been to Broadway?’ Her voice outside the microphone and the singing was deep, with a thin rasp as it’s edges; not the deepness of a woman like Big Mama Thornton, but a masculine–feminine voice– like a man and a woman reading a poem together. It just sounded right coming from her. Her voice was hers.

ABOUT AUTHOR MUKOMA WA NGUGI

Mukoma Wa Ngugi is an Associate Professor of English at Cornell University and the author of The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity and Ownership, the novels Mrs, Shaw, Black Star Nairobi, Nairobi Heat, and two books of poetry, Logotherapy and Hurting Words at Consciousness. Mukoma was born in Evanston Illinois and grew up in Kenya before returning to the United States for his undergraduate and graduate education. He is the son of world-renowned African writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o.

Mukoma holds PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University and a BA in English and Political Science from Albright College. He is the co-founder of the Mabati Cornell Kiswahili Prize for the African Literature and co- director of the Global South Project Cornell. You can find the author on

Twitter

http://www.twitter.com/MukomaWaNgugi

Visit Mukoma Wa Ngugi on his website

http://www.mukomawangugi.com/

Link to buy Unbury Our Dead With Song

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbury-Dead-Song-M%C5%A9koma-Ng%C5%A9g%C4%A9/dp/1911115987/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=