Waiting: A Novel of Uganda at War

Set during the last year of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s brutal regime, Waiting exposes the fear and courage of a small, close-knit community uncertain of what the edicts of a madman and the marauding of his uncontrollable army will bring with each coming day. Safe for years in their poor remote country village far from Amin’s political battlefield, Alinda and her family are plunged into the rippling effects of war when the troops of the self-proclaimed Last King of Scotland use the local highway as an exit route from the pursuing Ugandan and Tanzanian liberators. With her mother on the verge of labour, her brother anxious to join the liberators, and a house full of hungry siblings, neighbours, and displaced refugees, Alinda learns what it takes to survive and eventually plan for a new life. Waiting captures the intimate details of a home front battle inflicted on individuals locked in a personal, daily war too often overshadowed by the atrocities of Amin’s dictatorship and the eccentricities of his character. Here the hidden realities and despair of the state-sponsored war on the Ugandan people gives way to the hope forged by the coming of the liberators and the renewed spirit of the people themselves as they reconstruct their homes and lives.