Like an African Midnight's Children or One Hundred Years of Solitude, this epic generational saga set in Uganda tells a story of the twentieth century that is seminal in its scope and vision. Moses Isegawa's unforgettable tale is centered around the coming-of-age of Mugezi, a charming and quick-witted young man who manages to make it through the hellish reign of Idi Amin and experiences firsthand the most crushing aspects of Ugandan society. He withstands his distant father's oppression, his mother's cruelty in the name of Catholic zeal, and the ravages of war, poverty, and AIDS. Through it all he is miraculously able to keep a hopeful and even occasionally bemused outlook on life. In the end his hard-won observations form a cri de coeur for a people shaped by the untold losses of the postcolonial African experience. Mugezi's odyssey, from a small rural community to the city of Kampala and, ultimately, across the borders of Uganda, is a riveting work from a powerful, passionate, and humorous new literary voice.