Sophia Mustafa was born in India in 1922 but raised and educated in Nairobi, Kenya. She moved with her husband to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1948 and served for a time as an elected member of Parliament. Mustafa and her husband moved to Canada in 1989 and settled in Brampton, Ontario. She died in 2005.
Fiction
Broken Reed
Tanzania: E&D Ltd., 2005.
Synopsis (derived from African Books Collective website)
This posthumously published novel is the story of Nureen, a Muslim woman of great spirits and personal independence, who experiences and survives the emotional turmoil of Indian independence, a transplanted upbringing in Africa, and an imposed arranged marriage to a Pakistani cousin.
“The novel is at once vivid account of the cultural damage caused by colonial rule; an exploration of the inward, personal conflicts between modernity, feminist consciousness, and often repressive traditional culture; and a critique of the cultural crises unleashed by post-colonial nationalism and identity politics.”
Fiction
In the Shadow of Kirinyaga: Novel
Toronto: TSAR, 2002.
PS8576 .U87 I5 2002
Publisher’s Synopsis
This beautiful novel reveals a rare insight into life in early colonial Kenya, from the perspective of an Asian Muslim family. The poignant story of the young Shaira, her innocence caught in the web of larger events, adult concerns, and a restrictive tradition, is sure to capture the heart.
Links
Publisher Mawenzi House, formerly TSAR