Nathaniel Otieno Ogai

Ghosts of Illemi Nathaniel Otieno Ogai

Travel with me to 19th Century ancient Sudan... While the restof the African hinterland enjoys a relatively routine and idylliclife, Black Sudan is part of the Ottoman Empire with a Khedivatein Cairo. Meet the ancient Chief Illemi and his people whoare suddenly thrust into a time of turmoil that touches theirpersonal lives with the advent of the slave trade in the Bahrel Ghazal. What follows is a time of bloody wars to resist slavetrade and eventually colonialism. At the heart of the narrative is Liech and his twin Nyathi Nyangwho manage to survive it all and get an education, travel, fallin love and convert to the Catholic faith in the auspices of thelegendary Saint Bishop Comboni. They eventually return totheir motherland. This novel will help the reader to understand and empathizewith modern Sudan and the numerous transitions they havehad to undergo as a people to date. Ghosts of Illemi is a tapestryof fact and fiction, mythology and religion, war and peace. It isultimately the tenacity of a people against forceful elementsof change that have left shadows, shadows which becameghosts that still linger today as captured in this seminal literarywork of historical fictio