“You would have these very traditional patriarchal Asian families coming to the UK and everything’s upended – the breadwinners of the family are not necessarily the breadwinners when they come to the UK,” she said. In her research, the author said she discovered depression was higher among Ugandan Asian men who had relocated to the UK. Shah blamed his “erratic” behaviour on the lack of control he has over the situation. However, eldest son Pran particularly struggles to adapt to his new life and harbours an array of secrets which threaten to tear the family apart. But I wanted to use that first scene to give readers a sense of what was truly going on there, where a country was being upended by terrible, terrible things.”Īll the characters face challenges as they prepare to leave their Ugandan home for London. If anything, I may have pulled back on the violence some people had witnessed. “You could be walking down a street and see dead bodies. “My understanding from research was that (violence) was quite common,” she said.
The opening scene showed how closely normal life and “horrifying” violence were intertwined during Amin’s presidency, she explained. Shah said she felt conflicted about including depictions of violence, but added that she understood it was impossible to disregard it in a book about the expulsion. Kololo Hill is Neema Shah’s debut novelīrutality is introduced almost immediately, within the first pages of the book, when Asha sees a number of dead bodies along a riverbank. It prompted violence too – the military were accused of engaging in theft and physical and sexual violence against the minority Asian population. The expulsion left thousands of families devastated, with approximately 80,000 Ugandan Asians impacted by the decree. They had to leave their homes, businesses, friends and family and start again with nothing. (Uganda) was the only country they had known. “The story of the expulsion always fascinated me. “If not here, would it be Kenya, Tanzania or India? But I don’t speak Swahili and I didn’t visit India until I was in my 20s,” she told Eastern Eye. It sparked the question – where would that home be? During her schooldays, the British-born writer was told to “go back to her own country” by some of her peers. Shah’s grandparents hailed from east Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) and she often wondered what it would be like to leave a country and start again. It follows an Asian family – mother Jaya, brothers Vijay and Pran and newly-wed Asha – as they prepare to flee for the UK, having been given only 90 days to leave their home. Neema Shah’s debut novel Kololo Hill is a fictional account about the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by president Idi Amin in 1972. A NEW book exploring the expulsion of Uganda Asians in the 1970s was inspired by the “terrifying” prospect of being forced to leave your home country for another, its author has revealed.
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