Summary
The Shadow of the Sun is a collection of stories gathered from different parts of Africa by the narrator based on his individual experiences, observations, analyses and conclusions. As he puts it, “This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there—about encounters with them, and time spent together.”
The book starts with the narrator landing at the airport in Ghana and hence beginning his experience of Africa. He starts by describing the tropical climate, the weather, the sun, how Africans live in sunlight, the smells and everything in between. He later does the same in detail everywhere he goes. He narrates about the locals, governments, politicians, warlords, history, culture, friendships however brief, food, gold, poverty, deaths, the desert and economics. He does all this in the most vivid way possible.
Themes
Politics
The narrator talks much about coups in different parts of Africa, like in Uganda under Amin and in other countries. I think this is a recurring thing in the book.
The lesson, or what the author is showing us, is the common characteristics of African governments after colonialism. Many thought that by being in power their country's problems would vanish. Yet they did not know how to rule after the colonialists left. In many ways, colonialism continued even when the whites left.
One thing that stood out to me was his description of post-independence politics: “poverty and disillusion of those on the bottom rungs, coupled with the cupidity and gluttony of those on the top, create a poisoned, unstable atmosphere.” The army then presents itself as the champion of the injured and humiliated and reaches for power.
His account of Idi Amin was also particularly striking to me because it takes me through the history leading to his rise and the terror that followed.
Wars and warlords
The book also talks about wars, for example in Sudan, where the north fights the south over the fertile area around the Nile. But subsequently, the Sudanese in the south also form their own groups of warlords targeting international relief, while killing and tormenting an already poor population.
After the country's granaries are empty, the warlords suggest peace talks, only for the World Bank and others to give them more loans and aid, which goes into their already swollen bellies while the local population remains poor and starving. The cycle goes on. Even after the war, those who were soldiers are left idle and hungry, as he describes in Eritrea.
The lesson here is that poverty can either create a beast—warlords—or misery—the victims, usually women and children.
Colonialism and its devastating effects
One of the most visible and devastating effects of colonialism is racism. The Europeans and the Africans alike, because of their indifference and unwillingness to learn about each other, knew very little about one another when these encounters began. Europeans knew so little about African languages, culture, religion, beliefs, climate, forests, insects and animals, yet they set out to exploit Africa. Africans, who were also scared and unfamiliar with the Europeans, knew little about them too.
This lack of understanding eventually left the two groups to categorise themselves according to the one thing that was immediately visible: skin colour. Hence, white versus black. Lines were drawn based on race. The African was black, backward and savage, while the European was white and civilised. Kapuściński shows how these early encounters were not really encounters between two cultures trying to understand one another. They were often encounters led by “robbers, soldiers of fortune, adventurers, criminals, slave traders,” whose interests were conquest, plunder and control. As he puts it, “intercultural exchange was monopolized by a class of ignoramuses.”
What I found interesting is that, over the years, the situation has not remained equal in terms of what the two sides know about each other. Africans have had to learn much more about Europeans and their world. We know their languages, their history and many aspects of their culture, partly because of the long influence of colonialism and everything that followed it. Yet Kapuściński argues that European languages themselves have not developed enough vocabulary to adequately describe African realities. He gives the example of the jungle, where he knows words such as “palm,” “baobab” and “euphorbia,” but these do not begin to describe the hundreds of trees and plants he encounters. He extends this problem beyond plants and animals to African psychology, faith and mentality.
This was interesting to me because it shows that knowing another culture is not simply about knowing its language. You can know someone's language and still not have the words to describe their world. Africa, as he says, is “a thousand situations, varied, distinct, even contradictory.” What may be true in one part of Africa may be completely untrue in another.
He also makes the point that colonialism did not simply divide Africa; in a sense, it brutally unified it. He refers to the thousands of small states, kingdoms, ethnic unions and federations that existed before colonialism and describes how colonialism reduced these many entities into much fewer territories. Yet the variety remained underneath the borders. I found this interesting because it helps explain why Africa cannot simply be spoken of as one thing. The continent contains many different histories, peoples, cultures and ways of life.
The author also shows that the consequences of slavery and colonialism went deeper than political control. He writes that on the psyche of the African, the slave trade left “the deepest and most painfully permanent scar: the inferiority complex.” This stood out to me because the effects of colonialism were not only about land, labour and political power; they also affected how Africans could come to see themselves in relation to Europeans.
The author is therefore trying to show us something deeply embedded in our human history. Something that can only be conquered if Europeans and Africans alike stop for a bit and look closer and deeper into the interior and draw meaning and understanding from each person beyond race.
Poverty, diseases and hunger
This theme cuts across many parts of the stories the narrator puts across. In the desert, nomads die of thirst and hunger—the children die first, then the women, then the men and the camel.
The tropics are infested with mosquitoes and hence malaria and fevers. One dies of such. In fact, so many Africans do. There is little medicine and few doctors, and if they are there, they are often very far away and serve only the few people who manage to reach the crowded clinics.
Africans are jobless, idle and always hungry. Their villages are destroyed and they have nothing to eat there, so they move to the cities and become bayaye, a word the narrator uses repeatedly.
His description of Ethiopia was especially difficult to read. He describes people dying of hunger and malaria, yet there was food in the country. He concludes that “the great famine was the result not of a shortage, but of inhumane relations.” That part stayed with me because the suffering was not simply about there being no food.
Culture and beliefs
Culture and beliefs are also recurring themes. What stood out was the part where he narrates seeing people in the night whose silhouettes he could not distinguish, carrying a person on a stretcher in a zigzag manner and disappearing. He then goes into detail about witches and wizards and the beliefs surrounding them.
The author is showing us the rich beliefs and their existence in some African communities. You have to be curious to learn about such things because many of these stories are not openly talked about or written about.
My reflections
This is one of the books that I read and marvelled at certain things: how the author made his narration and analysis vivid. He is European, but he is one of a kind who actually went to the places he writes about and experienced the people, the culture, the insects, animals, trees and even diseases, joy, kindness and everything in between that is there in these parts of Africa.
The reader can clearly see this from his writing because anyone who has been in these places can relate and even pause and laugh at his narration, just like I did.
For example, his description of the African greeting in Accra made me laugh because it is so real to my reality here in Uganda. He writes, “You often see two (or more) people standing in the street and dissolving with laughter.” He explains that sometimes they are simply saying hello and that the laughter ends when the greeting ends. I have seen this myself.
I was particularly amazed by the story where he and his colleague went to rest in a hut and found a huge snake sleeping there. They had to kill it, but later he regretted it. What struck me was his reaction after killing the cobra: “I felt sad that that heart... had stopped beating.” I did not expect that reaction from him, and it made the encounter much more human.
His description of Uganda also caught my attention. He observes that Uganda, as defined by its current borders, was a young country but encompassed parts of four ancient kingdoms: Ankole, Buganda, Bunyoro and Toro. That observation immediately made sense to me because these histories existed long before the borders of the modern country.
I also found myself laughing at some of the very ordinary things he noticed. His description of morning ablutions at Godwin's house, where someone uses a bucket carefully so as not to waste water and then breaks off a small twig to clean their teeth, was very familiar to me.
Even his description of Apollo's shirt reminded me of how country men and women patch their clothes and shoes until they can no longer be repaired. He writes that there are so many pieces of different fabrics sewn onto Apollo's shirt that “it is no longer possible to ascertain the color and material of that original” shirt. That is such a simple observation, but he makes it vivid.
The chapter on Rwanda also captured my attention. His explanation of the history between the Hutus and Tutsis gave me a different way of looking at the conflict. I was particularly captivated by his statement that the conflict was “not only a quarrel between castes, but also a violent clash between tyranny and democracy.” I am not sure that I have completely understood everything he means by this, but it is one of those passages that made me stop and think.
And then there is his example of Sebuya's accident and the difference between what he calls white reasoning and the traditional explanation involving a spell. I laughed out loud reading that part. This narrator is very vivid.
What I like about this narrator is that he writes about events as they are. He does not conceal things to make parts of Africa look good, neither does he make them look worse than they already are. He writes his observations almost like a child seeing something for the first time and then narrating it to the audience.
His concluding chapter, where he sits under the shade of a tree in Africa, also stayed with me. He brings together the raw culture of many African communities: the importance of shade and water, gathering together, beliefs about witches, the inability to live in solitude, and the oral traditions of passing history from one generation to another.
He writes, “Africa, except for the Muslim north, did not know writing, and history here is an oral tradition.” He then describes people gathering under the mango tree in the evening to contemplate what they are and where they came from. That part helped me understand why the evening gathering and storytelling are more than simply people sitting together—they are part of identity and connection to ancestors.
Strength
This author, this narrator, has outdone himself. I have never before read a book written purely from observations but so beautifully written. He writes his observations in Africa for what he sees and yet describes what he sees in a human way. He takes in the beautiful and wrecked parts of Africa—the countries he visits—and weaves something so vivid, painful sometimes, and relatable for those who have lived in these countries.
The author starts off the book with his experience in Africa and concludes the first chapter with the intriguing conclusion that Africa does not exist. He then goes ahead to explain Africa's beauty.
I also like how his observations are not limited to the big political events. He notices greetings, clothes, food, insects, animals, roads, houses, ways of washing, beliefs and even the way people measure distance. These small things are what made the book feel alive to me.
Weakness
At the end of every chapter, the author seems to end the story short. For example, I wanted to know how he and his driver managed to get out of the traffic jam going to Onitsha.
But maybe this is so because the book is not about one particular story. It is a collection of many stories narrating the author's experiences, analyses and adventures in several countries in Africa.
Recommendation
I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read African literature. I also think it is a book that can be read more than once because there are many observations and ideas that may not fully sink in the first time.
Rating
4/7
