Brief

Four childhood friends born in Africa at the beginning of the second world war discover the colorful history of their continent as well as their own bloodlines. Jabu, a grandchild of a powerful tribal chief, seeks to justify his own place in the family line against the background of Rhodesia’s move towards independence.

What We Liked

This is an interesting take on colonial African literature that is based on a true story and has a real life historical timeline of monumental world events in the background of close looks at the daily lives of four individuals.

Film: As a film, this would be a beautiful biopic focusing on Jabu, his family's past legacy, and the trouble he finds himself in.

TV: As a television show, this could be an interesting docuseries about the lives of these individuals as they face an increasingly changing world.

Key points: Based on a true story; Historical fiction; Unique setting; Ensemble main cast; Political drama

Synopsis

A young pregnant African woman wanders into a clinic in Southern Rhodesia in 1939 and dies while giving birth. The woman who runs the clinic, Lalan, a white Scottish nurse, adopts the baby boy and affectionately nicknames him Prune. She chooses to share custody over the boy with a young native man and his wife so that Prune will be able to learn his own culture and heritage as well. Through his adoptive parents, Prune becomes childhood best friends with Carol, Themba, and Jabu.

Carol is the young white daughter of Angus, who works with Jabu's father in governmental affairs representing Africans in their negotiations with Great Britain. Carol enjoys hanging out with Jabu and Prune, and even teaches the things she learns at school to Prune, until she is sent off to boarding school. At the boarding school, because of her friendship with Africans, Carol is bullied mercilessly by the other girls, and spends every day waiting until the holidays when she will finally be able to go back to see her family and friends.

Jabu is the grandson of a great warlord chief and looks to follow in his family's footsteps. He goes through a traditional initiation into his tribe when he is twelve years old, taking a few days to wander through the African bush to prove his worth. He attempts to hunt a leopard while on his journey, but is prevented from doing so when a white man with a gun shoots the leopard instead. Jabu learns more about his family's legacy and begins to resent Prune for his illegitimate birth. At first, Jabu rarely tries at school, but after his father's urging he puts more effort into it and soon is able to take a higher education test. When Jabu sees Prune at the test, Jabu is embarrassed that someone as lower in stature as Prune is also taking the test and averts his eyes. Jabu takes a job working at a prison and befriends his white coworker, Aidan. Jabu does much more work than Aidan but is paid much less. This doesn't bother Jabu, but Aidan quits in an outrage at the inequality, and this causes Jabu to notice the different ways whites are treated in Rhodesia. He is confused by the contrasting goodwill between white and black at his grandfather’s first ever indigenous cattle sale.

Prune gets a job working at a storefront, and while the owner of the store is kind to him, the son of the store owner resents Prune. Prune is a quick learner and gets promoted until he is in charge of bookkeeping for the store. Prune throws a party for Lalan, and the storekeeper even supplies some free drinks to help out. However, soon after, the storekeeper notices an error in the books, and fires Prune--the storekeeper's son had set Prune up to make it look as if Prune was stealing money, and Prune is unable to convince the shopkeeper otherwise. Prune is angry, but gets closer and closer to his adopted sister, Maura, and asks her for her hand in marriage. She agrees.

Prune, Themba, Carol, and Jabu all join Carol's father, Angus, on a trip through Matabeleland. On this trip, Carol's father brings their history to life, while telling them all about the political changes happening on the continent. Angus accidentally lets it slip that Themba is the distant grandson of an enemy of Jabu's grandfather, and Jabu leaves, enraged. Prune opens his own store and marries Maura. Carol marries Simon, a crush of hers from back in her school days. Prune builds a store for Carol to run. Zimbabwe's Unilateral Declaration of Independence affects all of the character's lives in different ways--especially Jabu, who enlists as a soldier to support President Joshua Nkomo. The prison warden at the prison where Jabu worked suspected his nationalism and had spies placed on Jabu. Jabu leaves the country.

One day, a group of soldiers from the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, a militant nationalist group seeking to eliminate minority white rule in Zimbabwe, arrive at Carol's store. Jabu is among them. Carol and Prune debate over what to do before Prune calls the police.

About The Author

Jill Baker spent her childhood in Matebeleland as the daughter of a man dedicated to early African education and Principal of three leading African schools. Her adult life on a farm was brought to an abrupt end with the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965 and she worked for the next 18 years as a journalist, news and documentary presenter and producer in television and radio.