The Old Drift
SynopsisPlot
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 (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives—their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes—emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction.
Story
About this book
In 1904, a colonial settlement called The Old Drift sits on the banks of the Zambezi River, close to Victoria Falls in what is now Zambia. At a hotel nearby, a feverish man named Percy M. Clark makes a single error that binds together the lives of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. From that moment, the novel follows three Zambian families across more than a century, tracing how one mistake spirals into a long chain of consequences passed down through generations.
The three families are black, white, and brown, and their stories collide and separate as Zambia itself changes around them. Namwali Serpell moves between historical periods and literary modes, shifting from colonial-era realism to fairytale, romance, and science fiction as the timeline stretches into the present and beyond. The narrative voice belongs to a strange collective chorus that identifies itself as humanity's greatest enemy, giving the storytelling an unusual, nonhuman perspective.
Each generation carries forward the triumphs, errors, losses, and hopes of the one before it. The book is set against the political and social landscape of Zambia from its colonial period through independence and into a speculative near future, connecting personal fate to national history through the recurring theme of borders created and crossed.
