The story, based on historical events, is set in the former Rwanda-Urundi, a tiny landlocked territory in Central Africa held under Belgian trusteeship until 1962.  The action takes place mainly in Buja, the lovely and seemingly dormant capital overlooking majestic Lake Tanganyika. At the time, the city’s population is about 70,000, comprising Congolese and a minority of Europeans of various origins, as well as Asians and Arabs.

Background: The time is just before Independence.  The Tutsi, of nilotic origin, have been ruling over the region for the past four centuries.  Under their yoke are the Hutu who constitute about 84% of the population and the Twa or pygmies (1%).  But the Tutsi who consider themselves as the land’s aristocracy are themselves divided, both in lineage and politically. There are two main factions: 

- the hardlners headed by Prince Ruego who intend to pave the way toward socialism and to loosen their ties with Belgium and the West. 

- the pro-Western faction, the Christian Democrats, whose representative is the prince’s fun-loving father, the Mwami (king).

Plot: Damiana, the enticing wife of Tobias Antoniades, a wealthy Greek merchant twenty years younger than him, has the reputation of being a hot ticket in town.  Among Damiana’s lovers are the Mwami himself, a Belgian police officer and Dimitri Stavros, a cinema owner.  Damiana has added to her list a young American, Oswald Radcliffe, who works as a paramedic at the Evangelical mission.  Oswald is a poet and an idealist.

Dimitri is terribly jealous and wants Damiana to divorce her husband.  He knows about her affairs, and since Damiana doesn’t take him seriously, he decides to approach her husband, telling him about the Mwami and the Belgian police officer.  That doesn’t deter Damiana, for Tobias, a weak man, with a heart ailment, scoffs at Dimitri.  Outraged, Dimitri takes an unexpected step and goes and sees political opponents of the Prince, and meets with the Hutu leader Ntyca.  He then comes back to Tobias and tells him that if the Prince wins the elections, all the foreign-owned businesses will be nationalized, including his. Tobias and other important representatives of the white community are summoned by Ntyca, and Tobias is ultimately convinced that he and his influential peers should support the Hutu majority financially.

The Prince, under house arrest, is released by the Belgians. The situation gets out of hand and consequently becomes very dangerous for the Hutu.  The latter demand that Dimitri kill the prince.  They threaten to down the Greek if he doesn’t accept.  In return, they promise him a safe-conduct and a transfer of funds to Europe.  Stavros shoots the Prince, while the latter is delivering a speech on the terrace of the Restaurant Tanganyika. Stavros flees, but in the middle of the night, his car breaks down.  He waits on the side of the road when another car stops.  The driver offers to give him a lift.  The driver is none other than the king himself. The culprits are found out and the Hutu conspirators, Stavros as well as Tobias are executed.

This novel has the ingredients of an African and a Greek Tragedy at once and I had originally thought of calling it PRINCES AND GODS.

Plot: Damiana, the enticing wife of Tobias Antoniades, a wealthy Greek merchant twenty years younger than him, has the reputation of being a hot ticket in town.  Among Damiana’s lovers are the Tutsi Mwami himself, a Belgian police officer and Dimitri Stavros, a cinema owner.  Damiana has added to her list a young American, Oswald Radcliffe, who works as a paramedic at the Evangelical mission.  Oswald is a poet and an idealist. Dimitri is terribly jealous and wants Damiana to divorce her husband. To reach his aims he will gradually get involved in the local politics and before he realizes it he will be chosen as the hitman in the assassination of the Tutsi Prince Ruego, slated to become the country’s first Prime Minister.

All facts are true and I have lived through them, only names have been changed. It is mostly about the Hutu and the Tutsi and their feud (refer to the 1994 Tutsi genocide Rwanda).

Excerpts from the ‘World Literature Today’ review :

“It takes a deft hand not only to make us believe in the various flesh-and-blood cast of characters and their beknotted lines of action but also to make us smell Africa, feel the voluptuous contact between human skins of different colors, rejoice in a sensuosity at once voluptuous and coolly observed, its heat utterly controlled, like a glowing horseshoe under the blows of an expert blacksmith.”