Just Matata (Matata Trilogy) - Softcover

Menezes, Braz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1466360933 ISBN 13: 9781466360938

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011

Synopsis

.Matata means ‘trouble’ in Swahili, as Chico discovers after jumping ship on a journey from India to Africa in 1928. Instead of his original destination of Mozambique, he arrives in the British-ruled Kenya. With some skills and much sweat, he navigates the channels open to him under the racially segregated structure of the colony, while doing all to keep his Indo-Portuguese heritage alive, and dreaming only of retirement to his beloved Goa. Enter son Lando. Just two decades later all Chico’s plans are on hold. Just Matata, narrated by Lando, from the perspective of a eleven year-old boy, brings history to life in these multi-layered stories that straddle two distinct colonies in mid 20th century - the bucolic and romantic Goa (Portuguese India) and the adventure-filled and yet precarious world of British Kenya. These tales transport the reader in dhows and steamships across the Indian Ocean; and in ox-drawn Scotch-wagons, horse-carriages, steam locomotives and bicycles between the two cultures. Sin, Saints and Settlers sum it all. From cashews and the coco-de-mer, the stories, alternatively funny, sad or evocative, deal with the enduring dichotomy between generations, races, cultures and love, and the transformational impact of destiny-changing events in life’s perpetual journey.

About this title

About the Author:

The author, Braz Menezes, is a retired architect and urban planner,Commonwealth Scholar. He lives in Toronto. He graduated from the University of Nairobi in Architecture. He was awarded a British Commonwealth Scholarship in 1964 to study Civic Design at the University of Liverpool. He returned to Kenya and established a successful practice, before eventually immigrating with his family to Canada in 1976. In 1978 he joined the World Bank and has travelled and worked in a number of countries including Brazil, Egypt, India, Mexico, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He returned to Canada in 2004. He studied creative writing and George Brown College, and at Humber College, Toronto. His work has appeared in various anthologies including; Canadian Voices, Volume 1&2, (2009-2010) Bookland Press, Toronto; Goa Masala, (2010) A-Plus Publishing, Toronto; Indian Voices, (2011) Fortytwo Books Galaxy, (2011) Mumbai; and Canadian Imprints, (2011) Writers and Editors Network-WEN, Toronto. Just Matata is his debut novel, and the first of the Matata Trilogy

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1466360933
• ISBN 13: 9781466360938
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 302