Livingstone’s Funeral

by Landeg White
Cinnamon Press 2010

Maria begins to piece together her family history during a dull Christmas visit to her grandmother after buying an African carving that she can’t resist. Discovering that Caroline, the long-suffering colonial wife whose letters are still kept, was not her great-grandmother, Maria begins a journey that pieces together the disparate narratives of this rich and intelligent novel, drawing together ‘people who cared not for nation or tribe but for the infinitely varied networks that were our common inheritance.’

An epic, yet intensely personal story of one young woman’s search for identity, revealing that ancestry is not always as it seems.

Reviews

“The novel is a rich, informative, sometimes alarming and often moving account … generous and perceptive … post-post colonial in the ironies and sympathies it has available for almost all its characters. A novel of confidence and subtlety.”

Stephen Knight

“Original, subtle, inventive. Livingstone’s Funeral has huge potential to become the best seller in its genre.”

Jack Mapanje

“If the aim of post-colonial scrutiny is to explore how the world can move on to mutual respect, it is through the realisation that we are all ultimately bound by the complex networks that are our common inheritance, something with which this rich book is actively engaged.”

Judy Lloyd