Francis Desouza

Flying Without Mandela: a Very British Education Francis Desouza

Lyndsay prophesies that in 1971, she will meet her true love, Joe Breganza, at a northern English university. A man of her dreams - and nightmares. She knows she will fall in love and later watch him and his friends perish in the devastating riots which would, ten years later, engulf London and all the English cities. Joe and his university friends are oblivious to their fate as they recklessly live their lives to the very fullest. Joe?s passionate opposition to British involvement in white apartheid South Africa keeps him just one step ahead of expulsion. Furthermore, with courage and defiance, the group confront the forces of racism and fascism which are awakening and looming in the northern English cities. The story climaxes in 1981 when devastating riots break out throughout Britain as the disadvantaged and dispossessed finally rise and take to the streets. In midst of this chaos and reckoning, Lindsay frantically struggles to defy fate and change the tragic destiny of her soul mate and his friends. The story is about love, race and rock and roll: A Catcher in the Rye meets IF.