We are all birds of uganda

Having traveled around Uganda for a month and falling in love with it, this book was right up my alley. I loved the story and the writing. Definitely recommend it.

I have not read as intriguing and delightful book as this for many years. It is roughly a story about the Asian expulsion from Uganda of 1972. I selected it in large part because I assumed it was written by a Ugandan and happy to have the country represented internationally. The author is biracial (Pakistan and Nigeria), but she knew nothing about the Expulsion, researched the event, and wrote the book in six months while still practicing law in London. The novel is the story of grandfather Hasan who befriended black Ugandan Abdullah and then left his house and business to him as he was out the door. It is also the story of Sameer and Maryam. They interweave in a dextrous way. Kampala is presented as gloriously tropical; you’ll want to go.

I really enjoyed this book . Having lived in Leicester for 10 years I met and worked with several wonderful Asians who had settled there from Uganda and am in awe of how they arrived with so little and made so much of their lives in England. It was good to learn a bit more through the characters in the book.

I was looking for fiction on Uganda and this one was the first to come up. It surely served its purpose: it makes me all the more excited for our upcoming trip and it taught me some basics about Ugandan 20th century history.As a book, it was rather disappointing though. It may be a stilistic question when to use which tense, but even style doesn't justify the complete neglection of sequence of tenses.The story itself is so naive at times that it cannot be attributed to the character anymore, who himself astounds the reader by his lack of self reflection. None of the relationships between the characters is actually developed in depth - everything is alluded to, without ever adding any flesh or substance. That may work for the first part, but is extremely unnerving during subsequent parts, where one would expect to find answers to the questions raised earlier.The few explanations that are given are overly simplistic ("she is so beautiful", "it feels good to pray together") and very unsatisfying. Conflicts arise, but are not resolved, simply fading out of existence.The questions at the end of the book, obviously to be answered by a class of students, reveal what the book is really intended for: as reading material to dive into the very interesting topic of East African Asians. And for that purpose, the book is not bad. But it's not literature to be taken seriously.

The book is split into two parts; Sameer’s life as a Muslim in the present day, we then hear from one of his ancestors in 1970s, writing letters to his deceased wife who he very much still loves, explaining his life with his new wife and the Asian expulsion in Uganda.I vaguely knew about Idi Amin’s brutal dictatorship of Uganda and the Asian expulsion, but this story is a great perspective for learning more. Through the writing, I honestly felt the fear of living in Uganda at a time like this and being given 90 days to sort citizenship and passports and get out of the country. I loved the writing! The depictions of Uganda felt real and authentic.I wanted a bit more from the ending. Without giving spoilers, I wanted to know more about Sameer’s life at the end. The very last line of the story is ambiguous, but I have interpreted it to mean that even in this present day, racism is still an issue and even in places where we may feel back at home or part of a community, there are still and will always be racial challenges.

A decent story but perhaps the author tried to squeeze too much in a relatively compact book. The first part of the story is a bit tedious. I felt the bit about Sameer in the corporate London world, was a bit too long. The letters from his grandfather, much more interesting but given very few pages.When Sameer gets to Uganda, the story picks up pace. I found it took me very long to read the first part compared to the second, which flowed and covered lots more ground. The complexity of Indians in Uganda is not easy to compress in a 300 page novel. Hafsa Zayyan takes a decent shot at it.

The story had me gripped from the first page, I have not been able to put the book down! I even used audible to fill the moments when I was cooking or doing other household chores!A meaningful tale, deep, with many lessons. In the current UK climate with far right rioting on the streets against migrants, etc, this book felt eerily familiar. Except for the modern fact of people using social media to whip up their anti immigration sentiments, hearing a recount of what happened to Asians in Uganda, and the native anger towards them, just made me realise how quickly things could get out of control if you let it. The every day racism that the author describes that Sameer faces, is something that as Asians living in the UK, we would be very familiar with. I love how the author calls this behaviour out, its so familiar, yet unchanged, sad.I loved reading Hassans story, his love, devotion to his wife and business, his loyalty to Uganda, his despair at leaving and living in the UK, his story is so sad. It's intertwined with Sameers, both finding peace when they finally opened their eyes to that around them. I found Hassan and Sameer both such romantics at heart, and this is a story I won't easily forget. I find myself wanting to know more about this part of history that I do not know much about! Please tell me there is a sequel!!!!