Dance of the Jakaranda

Communications creative and podcast producer Natalie Sifuma shares her thoughts on Dance Of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani.

The concept of history is often limited to facts and rarely do these facts get entangled with humour. Peter Kimani allowed himself and his readers to revisit Kenyan history from a humorous perspective. Moving away from the capital, his setting steers the reader to the heart of Kenya where majority of the events in the book took place.

Kimani’s profound way of explaining the events as they unfold prior to Kenya’s independence shows his ability to portray the pre-colonial era as a rough but also learning process from multiple views during Kenya’s colonial period. From the onset of the railways construction at the port of Mombasa to its completion, while not limiting his complex story to the laying down of the rail track. The description of interrelationships between races both romantic and friendly places the reader in the book itself carefully watching these interactions grow, prosper and fail.