Namwali Serpell on 'The Old Drift'

Namwali Serpell joins me to discuss her debut novel 'The Old Drift.' 1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families as they collide and converge over the course of the century. As the generations pass, their lives—their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes—emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction.

You can listen to Namwali Serpell on 'The Old Drift' online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Namwali Serpell on 'The Old Drift' is an episode from Paraphrase by Stephen Fishbach.

This episode is 37:28 long.

This episode was published on May 15, 2019.

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