Rope Round the Head

About the Book

The book is set in a fictional nineteenth century African kingdom known as Sarama. Sarama has three leading rival families. Sarama's king Nfela, head of one of the leading families, is weary of all the infighting in his kingdom and so he decides that his son should marry a woman from another leading family in Sarama. But Maforu, the head of the third family is afraid because the union of the two families will put his family in a very vulnerable position, and so he wants to stop that union by stopping the marriage.

At the same time, the missionary activities are starting to take off in Sarama. The king is interested in the missionaries because he thinks they will bring him guns that will enable him to make his kingdom stronger. But he is increasingly frustrated that they are not providing him with the weapons in the way he had thought they would.

Nfela's desperation for arms to protect his throne in Sarama is heightened because Maforu is colluding with Arab traders who are supplying him with enough arms to depose Nfela. When an ambitious explorer comes to Sarama, Nfela thinks he has found a solution to his lack of good weapons.

This book explores the state of African culture and how a great range of outside influences had affected it for decades.

About the Author

Currently a fourth year university student of Electronics and Software engineering in Loughborough university.