Dance of the Jakaranda

"This funny, perceptive and ambitious work of historical fiction by a Kenyan poet and novelist explores his country's colonial past and its legacy through the stories of three men involved with the building of a railroad linking Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean—what the Kikuyu called the 'Iron Snake' and the British called the 'Lunatic Express.'"
—New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice

"Kimani has done a game job managing the carpentry of this ambitious novel, bringing great skill to the task of deploying multiple story lines, huge leaps back and forth in time and the withholding and distribution of information...Once Kimani has his plotlines all set, his writing relaxes, and it's here that you can see his raw talent...I have never read a novel about [Kenya] that's so funny, so perceptive, so subversive and so sly."
—New York Times Book Review

"In his American debut, Kimani illustrates the discordant history of East...