Old Drift (Serpell)

The Old Drift 
Namwali Serpell, 2019
Crown/Archetype
576 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101907146


Summary
An electrifying debut from the winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African writing, The Old Drift is the Great Zambian Novel you didn’t know you were waiting for.
 
On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift.

Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis.

The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human.

In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond.

As the generations pass, their lives—their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes—form a symphony about what it means to be human.

From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines—this gripping, unforgettable novel sweeps over the years and the globe, subverting expectations along the way.

Exploding with color and energy, The Old Drift is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1980
• Where—Lusaka, Zambia
• Raised—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale; Ph.D., Havard
• Awards—Rona Jaffee Writers' Award; Caine Prize for African Writing
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California


Carla Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer and academic raised in the US. Her debut novel, The Old Drift, was published in 2019.

Serpell was born in Lusaka, Zambia. Her father, a British-Zambian father was a professor of psychology at the University of Zambia, and her mother an economist. When she was nine, the family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in the US. Serpell received her B.A. in literature from Yale and her Ph.D. in American and British fiction at Harvard.

She has lived since 2008 in California, where she is an associate professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. She returns to Lusaka for visits annually.

In addition to her 2019 novel, The Old Drift, Serbell has been recognized for her short stories. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story, "The Sack." Her first published story, "Muzungu," was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009, shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize, and anthologized in The Uncanny Reader.

In 2014, she was chosen as one of the Africa 39, a Hay Festival project to identify the most promising African writers under 40. In 2011, she received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. (Adapted from Wikipedia and from the author's website. Retrieved 3/4/2019.)

Book Reviews
It’s hard to believe this is a debut, so assured is its language, so ambitious its reach, and yet The Old Drift is indeed Namwali Serpell’s first novel, and it signifies a great new voice in fiction. Feeling at once ancient and futuristic, The Old Drift is a genre-defying riotous work that spins a startling new creation myth for the African nation of Zambia.… Serpell’s voice is lucid and brilliant, and it’s one we can’t wait to read more of in years to come.
Nylon


★ Recalling the work of Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez as a sometimes magical, sometimes horrifically real portrait of a place, Serpell’s novel goes into the future of the 2020s, when the various plot threads come together in a startling conclusion. Intricately imagined, brilliantly constructed, and staggering in its scope, this is an astonishing novel.
Publishers Weekly


★ Three multicultural families' pasts and presents, told by a swarming chorus of voices, culminate in a tale as mysterious as it is timeless.… This stunning cross-genre debut draws on Zambian history and… reinforces the far-flung exploration of humanity.
Library Journal


 ★ In this smartly composed epic, magical realism and science fiction interweave with authentic history…. Serpell’s novel is absorbing, occasionally strange, and entrenched in Zambian culture—in all, an unforgettable original.
Booklist


 ★ Comparisons with Gabriel García Marquez are inevitable and likely warranted. But this novel's generous spirit, sensory richness, and visionary heft make it almost unique among magical realist epics.
Kirkus Reviews

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