Böcker av Jon Lunn

Two sensational trials in Southern Rhodesia in 1923 lay bare the evils of settler colonialism. White railwayman Iolo James defends his black domestic servant, Michael, in court against sexual assault charges laid by his wife, Doris. All three will pay a heavy price. Iolo considers himself to be a principled opponent of Empire, embarking on quixotic attempts to right its wrongs. Yet, despite good intentions, he often does much more harm than good to the people close to him. Normal relationships seem all but impossible in this deeply damaged society. Jon Lunn's novel is a layered, deeply moving exploration of an unjust historical epoch whose legacies persist to this day.Jon Lunn was born in London in 1961 and still lives there. He completed a doctorate in African history at the University of Oxford in 1988. Since then, he has been an academic, researcher and activist, working for organisations ranging from Amnesty International to the UK Foreign Office, from the London School of Economics to the House of Commons Library, He has now turned his hand to writing a novel.

This important book is the first in-depth history of the Rhodesian railway system. Covering the period 1888-1947, when the Rhodesian railway system was privately owned by Cecil Rhode''s British South Africa Company, this book uses the Rhodesian railway system as a prism through which it refracts many dimensions of the imperial experience in central and southern Africa, ranging from the impulses underpinning the regional ambitions of Rhodes himself to the origins of black worker protest in the Rhodesias.