Chilufya Chilangwa

Remember the African Skies Chilufya Chilangwa

Publisher Marketing: "Remember the African Skies" is a fiction novel that covers three generations of southern Africans from the late 1950's to the early 1980's. Although Mtesa is a fictitious country, the politics and racial struggles that the African people go through are depicted from the historical struggles of apartheid in South Africa, and Southern and Northern Rhodesian fight for independence. Mtesa depicts all the characteristics of all three countries and the long standing generations of black, white and mixed race Africans finding their place in society during the times of change. The main characters in the book are Kungulu Zulu, who is half black and half white, Sarah Zulu who is Kungulu's mother, and Charlie Bellmont who is Sarah Zulu's long time love and Kungulu's antagonist. The minor characters are Charlie's son Matthew, Catherine Bellmont who is Charlie's sister, and Munique who is a priest drawn between his faith for God and his love for Catherine. The story begins with a young African woman trying to raise her rambunctious teenage son in the UK and after having exhausted her options of reforming her son, she finally decides to use her life savings to make that one trip back home to Mtesa. Now that Matthew was fifteen, she believed that he was now old enough to understand her reasons for having left Mtesa. She also felt that is was time that Matthew met his biological father Charlie. While they are on the plane to Mtesa, she gives him a book "Remember the African Skies," a non-fiction novel that features his father and a young boy named Kungulu. As he reads the novel, he begins to see a reflexion of himself in Kungulu who encounters challenges of fitting in with his peers and the rest of society. By 1971, politics in Mtesa rise with a heat of change. The Black Empowerment groups begin to retaliate against the British Government and the Governor is taken to task. Pockets of riots break out around the country and Sarah, Kungulu's mother, gets caught up in the chaos and is arrested with rioters. Like most rioters, she is thrown in prison without a trial and is transferred from prison to prison around the country, an experience that most prisoners do not survive due to heavy interrogations of torture and harsh conditions. Without an immediate family member to raise Kungulu, the Bellmonts, the white family his mother worked for, take him in and raise him as one of their own. Despite the country's law of segregation, the Bellmonts adopt him as one of their own and their daughter, Catherine Bellmont, becomes his legal guardian. When Kungulu turns seventeen, he embarks on a quest to find his mother. On his journey, he unexpectedly crosses paths with Charlie Bellmont, the black sheep of the Bellmont family and his mother's long time love. Kungulu and Charlie realise that they needed each other to find Sarah. In the midst of the country's revolution, Charlie and Kungulu develop a bond that helps them heal their wounds from their past, and their unspoken love and acceptance for each other rekindles a new friendship between them.