Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe

This lush and intimate book explores the coming-of-age of three sisters in post Idi Amin Uganda. Each chapter in this collection of linked short stories develops the theme of exploration and discovery as the sisters mature and their interior and exterior lives expand. We meet Christine, the youngest sister, as a girl learning of the bittersweet dynamics of her parents' marriage through exploring her mother's jewellery drawer. She later learns her own lessons about relationships, including her relationship with herself, which becomes more complex when she moves to the United States. Christine's quiet, uptight sister Patti suffers humiliation at boarding school and finds her peace in religion, while her oldest sister, Rosa, is an adventurous and sexually precocious teenager with a feisty personality. In the final story, Christine returns home to Uganda, in a journey that has come full circle, but not with all the ends tied up. This is a subtle, powerful book about growing up as an African woman and it heralds the arrival of a remarkably gifted writer.