The Maestro, the Magistrate & the Mathematician
MODERN
African Writing
from Ohio University Press
Ghirmai Negash, General Editor
Laura Murphy, Series Editor
This series brings the best African writing to an international audience. These groundbreaking novels, memoirs, and other literary works showcase the most talented writers of the African continent. The series also features works of significant historical and literary value translated into English for the first time. Moderately priced, the books chosen for the series are well crafted, original, and ideally suited for African studies classes, world literature classes, or any reader looking for compelling voices of diverse African perspectives.
Books in the series are published with support from the Ohio University National Resource Center for African Studies.
Welcome to Our Hillbrow A Novel of Postapartheid South Africa
Phaswane Mpe
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1962-5
Dog Eat Dog: A Novel
Niq Mhlongo
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1994-6
After Tears: A Novel
Niq Mhlongo
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1984-7
From Sleep Unbound
Andrée Chedid
ISBN: 978-0-8040-0837-2
On Black Sisters Street: A Novel
Chika Unigwe
ISBN: 978-0-8214-1992-2
Paper Sons and Daughters Growing Up Chinese in South Africa
Ufrieda Ho
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2020-1
The Conscript A Novel of Libya’s Anticolonial War
Gebreyesus Hailu
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2023-2
Thirteen Cents: A Novel
K. Sello Duiker
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2036-2
Sacred River: A Novel
Syl Cheney-Coker
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2056-0 (hardcover) 978-0-8214-2137-6 (paperback
491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2102-4 (hardcover) 978-0-8214-2101-7 (paperback)
The Hairdresser of Harare
Tendai Huchu
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2162-8 (hardcover) 978-0-8214-2163-5 (paperback)
Mrs. Shaw: A Novel
Mukoma Wa Ngugi
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2143-7
The Maestro, the Magistrate & the Mathematician
Tendai Huchu
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2205-2 (hardcover) 978-0-8214-2206-9 (paperback)
TENDAI HUCHU
The Maestro, the Magistrate & the Mathematician
A NOVEL
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
© Tendai Huchu, 2014
All rights reserved
To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).
Printed in the United States of America
Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper
First published in 2014 by ‘amaBooks
P.O. Box AC1066, Ascot, Bulawayo
Cover design by Sebastian Biot
This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination. The author’s use of actual names and places is not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work. Any likenesses to persons living is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgement is made to Carcanet Press Ltd for the use of the extract from Hugh MacDiarmid’s ‘Scotland’, from Complete Poems, edited by Michael Grieve and W.R. Aitken (1993-4).
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ISBNS:
978-0-8214-2205-2 (hardcover)
978-0-8214-2206-9 (paperback)
978-0-8214-4553-2 (e-book)
TENDAI HUCHU is the author of The Hairdresser of Harare. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Manchester Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Gutter, AfroSF, Wasafiri, The Africa Report, Kwani? and numerous other publications. In 2013 he received a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Sacatar Fellowship. He was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing.
So I have gathered unto myself
All the loose ends of Scotland,
And by naming them and accepting them,
Loving them and identifying myself with them,
Attempt to express the whole.
from ‘Scotland’, by Hugh MacDiarmid
