Steve Chimombo

Steve Chimombo is one of Malawi's best-known writers. He is a poet, short story writer, editor, literary critic and a professor of literature at the University of Malawi.

Wrath of Napolo, The

Steve Chimombo

Newly available outside Malawi, this epic novel was inspired by the tragedy of the M.V. Vipya ship, which sank on Lake Malawi in 1946, and the subsequent legal investigations and court hearings.

In the novel, the protagonist Chilungamo Nkhoma, an investigative reporter, embarks on learning how the ship was grounded. But instead, he discovers that there are peoples and institutions with vested interests in concealing the truth. They will take great pains to do so and Nkhoma, his family and friends find themselves targets for hit squads. As Nkhoma retraces the original voyage of the ship, his mission assumes ethnic, trans-national and racial dimensions. His seemingly simple assignment grows into a process which resembles a national truth commission. Events culminate in a mass rally of the major political parties on the shore of the lake.

African Books Collective, Oxford