Milele Safari: An Eternal Journey Review

It was Dorothy L. Sayers who noted, in ‘Gaudy Night’, the significance of what she called a ‘chance assemblage of persons.’ Who knows what they might talk about? Who knows what each is privately remembering?

In the ‘present day’ of this debut novel, Jan Hawke exploits the potential of such a gathering to the full. Sophie is our main focus and way into the story, and from the beginning we are aware of her memories of previous times in Africa and the pain and loss she suffered then. Meanwhile, on the surface, she and her companions are enjoying their safari, chatting about animals they have seen, animals they hope to see, battling scorpions and drinking beer.

Just to make it really hard for herself, however, Jan Hawke then delves back not only into Sophie’s personal African tragedy, but into the memories and sorrows of many other characters, into the violent history of genocide and civil war, into myth and folklore and into the tangling together of some of those stories.

This is a bold venture for a first novel, but Hawke knows how to do it. The multiple strands of story, the different time-periods, the pain and the happiness, are skilfully brought together so that events and people are solid and four-dimensional, so that the reader can walk into these histories of love and loss and hope and sorrow, and feel as keenly as if they were there.

While reading, one is always aware of how solidly founded the story is on Hawke’s knowledge of Africa and her love for it. All the details that anchor the tale in our own non-fictional world are the fruit, not of targeted research, but of felt conviction.

This is a book worth reading. In the flood of available fiction in which we feel we may drown, this is one to seize hold of and keep.

Find it.