The Zulus of New York [Paperback]

The Great Farini would stride on to the stage and announce, Ladies and gentlemen, and now for the highlight of the day, the ferocious Zulus. The impresario Farini introduced Em-Pee and his troupe to his kind of show business, and now they must earn their bread. In 1885 in bustling New York City, they are the performers who know the true Zulu dances, while all around them fraudsters perform silly jigs. Reports on the Anglo-Zulu War portrayed King Cetshwayo as infamous, and audiences in London and New York flock to see his kin. What the gawking spectators dont know is that Em-Pee once carried nothing but his spear and shield, when he had to flee his king. But amid the citys squalid vaudeville acts appears a vision that leaves Em-Pee breathless: in a cage in Madison Square Park is Acol, a Dinka princess on display. For Em-Pee, it is love at first sight, though Acol is not free to love anyone back.A fictionalized account of a troupe of Zulu men taken to New York as performing curiosities at the end of the nineteenth centuryA unique, deftly crafted, and fully entertaining novel by a master of the narrative storytelling arts, The Zulus Of New York by Zakes Mda is a compelling page turner of a read from beginning to end. While especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists, as well as both community and college/university library Literary Fiction collections.ZA