The Hippo Pool

Three brothers have spent their childhood in a rural village near the River Zambezi in central Africa. The Hippo Pool is a special place where they have always gone to fish and to confide in each other. Now Baba, their father, has fallen ill with a mysterious disease and nothing will ever be the same again. The brothers? lives are about to take vastly different paths. The youngest boy, Chikomo, is traumatised by a dreadful accident in a minefield, a relic from the liberation war. His older brother, Mahachi, works in tourism and begins to experience and savour the unfamiliar ways of the developed world, which does not always serve him well. Usai, the eldest brother, marries a young woman from the township, Nelisiwe, but she has progressive ideas that threaten to break apart the traditional village life they all value so much. Soon Usai begins to fear that his heart will be broken. In a story anchored in the village rondavels, involving tradition, family loyalties, betrayal, guilt and passion, The Hippo Pool encapsulates all the complex social dilemmas and opportunities confronting modern Africa.