s-Southern Rhodesia 19

The Train House at Lobengula by Fatima Kara

Author bio: 

 

Fatima Kara is a Zimbabwean writer living in North Carolina. She has an MFA from Spalding University in Kentucky and was shortlisted for the 2021 Laxfield Literary Launch Prize. Her first novel, the Train House on Lobengula Street, grows from her childhood experiences in the Indian Muslim community in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). When not writing, Kara propagates fruit and nut trees and assists community leaders in planting them in schools and rural communities around Zimbabwe.

 

Book information:

 

The Trainhouse on Lobengula Street centres on the Kassims, an Indian Muslim family living in Southern Rhodesia in the mid-20th century.  In many ways, their experience is typical of their community at the time — managing rigid racial hierarchies and struggling to balance traditional Muslim culture with the fruits of modern life.  These challenges are felt especially strongly by Kulsum, the family matriarch, who is determined to ensure a better future for her daughters. 

 

Kulsum crosses the Indian Ocean to live with her in-laws in Bulawayo. Her world gradually opens up to reveal possibilities she never dreamed of—educating her daughters, establishing a thriving vegetable business, and building a house where she can raise her children. Yet those same dreams are threatened by a community unable to accept educated girls as anything other than outsiders, and her husband’s response is to arrange marriages for them in Uganda, thousands of miles away.  Kulsum is determined to see how her daughters are faring for herself, though she must convince her husband and his family to see the merits of her journey and the life she’s working to create for them all.  

 

The Train House on Lobengula Street is Part One of a compelling two-part story. 

Contact info:

For PR, sales, and distribution questions, please get in touch with Stephen Games at Envelope Books: editor@envelopebooks.co.uk.

For US-based readings or media opportunities, please get in touch with Kristen Che at Blue Hen: kristen@bluehen.pub

Mrs. Fatima Kara presented her book "The Train House on Lobengula Street" to Ambassador Vijay Khanduja. The book was also shortlisted for Laxfield Literay Launch 2021 Debut Author's Prize. The book is dedicated to the Bulawayo Indian Community.

Mrs. Fatima Kara presented her book “The Train House on Lobengula Street” to Ambassador Vijay Khanduja. The book was also shortlisted for Laxfield Literary Launch 2021 Debut Author’s Prize. The book is dedicated to the Bulawayo Indian Community.

Interior train passenger compartment Rhodesian

Copyright © Fatima Kara, All rights reserved.

The Train House on Lobengula street

The Train House on Lobengula Street

The Kassims are a traditional Indian Muslim family, living in Southern Rhodesia in the 1950s and 60s, where they enjoy a wealth of new opportunities but are held down by white racism and are torn apart by their own changing values. Kulsum wants her daughters to have an education that will expand their horizons; Razaak fears that education will make the girls unmarriageable within the Khumbar caste. Feeling sidelined by Kulsum’s modernity and her other achievements, Razaak defers to his father and sends their daughters to a less sophisticated branch of the family over 1000 miles away in rural Uganda. How should Kulsum respond? In this affectionate picture of a little-documented African cultural milieu, first-time author Fatima Kara digs into her own memories of life as a Gujarati in Bulawayo, conjuring up the brilliant colours, mouth-watering foods and exotic plant life of a region she remains devoted to and wants us to love as she does. The Train House on Lobengula Street is Part One of an entrancing two-part story.

Bulawayo, Rhodesia street scene 1960s
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