Philip Spires

Author of Mission, an African novel set in Kenya

Click here to visit philipspires.co.uk

the Mission website

09/25/07

Welcome

My website has information about myself and my book, Mission.

Mission is a novel set in Kenya, East Africa and is published by Libros International. Kenya is currently featured in the news because it was the home country of the father of Barack Obama. One aspect of Mission's story is the relationship between an educated Kenyan and his father, a relationship that impacts upon all of the book's characters. If Barack Obama had known his father, his traditions and his values, would work in poor areas of Chicago have been his formative experience?

Mission is an African novel. Much of it is set in Kitui District, eastern Kenya, in the 1970s. Kitui is a poor part of Kenya, a place where tourists never visit and where most people are still involved in subsistence agriculture. Because of the area's perennial problem with drought, however, most peasant farmers cannot grow enough to avoid hunger.

Mission is a work of fiction and explores themes of identity, development, change and faith from the perspectives of five main characters, Michael, Mulonzya, Janet, Boniface and Munyasya. The site offers extracts from the book and I hope you enjoy these enough to want the read the whole thing! It is partly based on my own experience as a volunteer teacher in Migwani, Kitui District, Kenya. I hope it evokes in the reader a sense of having not only visited East Africa, but also of having got to know it, just a little.

Here is a short summary of my book, Mission

Please have a look at my own site, which has full details of the book.

Mission

A novel set in Kenya

Michael, a missionary priest, has just killed Munyasya, a retired army officer. It might have been an accident, but Mulonzya, a politician resentful of the power of foreign churches, tries to exploit the tragedy for his own ends. Boniface, a young church worker, and his wife, Josephine, have just lost their child. They did not make it to the hospital in time, possibly because Michael made a detour to retrieve a letter from the Mission, a letter from Janet, a former volunteer teacher who was the priest’s neighbour for two years. It is Munyasya who has the last laugh, however, when he reveals that he was probably in control of events all along. Thirty years on, the same characters find their lives still influenced by his memory.

Mission is a substantial book of about 180,000 words and deals with many different times and places, despite the fact that it is set largely in Kenya. When your read it, I think you will agree that it addresses how lives can be transformed by a changing world.

Mission has taken me years to complete, but not because it took a long time to write. I completed a draft almost 20 years ago, and then ignored it until late 2006. I am happy with the result. It is a book I would like to read.

Go to philipspires.co.uk

A review of Mission from Cao Thac, Australia

Mission, by Philip Spires, offers an armchair exploration of the locals and foreign workers in a poor village in Kenya. Through their stories, we get to know their hopes and aspirations, their dilemmas, the circumstances that force them to act the way they do and, ultimately, their humanity. The book begins with a car accident in which the village drunk, a character nobody liked much, got killed. However, the day of the accident proves to be fateful for the major characters of the book. Like Kurosawa's movie Rashomon, each of the major characters - a Catholic priest who cares more about the welfare of the people in this life than for their souls in the next life, an earnest young Kenyan who wants to become a Catholic priest, a couple of local entrepreneurs who cleverly exploit the business and political opportunities in Kenya just after it gained independence etc - tells their hopes and ambitions, their circumstances and their dilemmas. The car accident at the beginning of the book turns out to be the denouement for the major characters.

The book is only published recently but has been incubated by Philip over many years while he spent time in Kenya, London, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates. While his portrayal of Kenya and London is quite vivid, we also recognise the basic humanity of the characters in the book. It is comforting to know that while we face different circumstances, we are basically the same round the world. This is a message we need to remind ourselves constantly as tribal and sectarian conflicts exploded in recent years.
 

You can read my blog here