I wouldn’t presume to say what Ugandans will learn from the book. I think that most of what it says are things they already know. The one thing that I think it might do–that I sincerely hope it will do–is encourage Ugandans who lost someone to think that the past is retrievable. I know that Duncan Laki’s story has already had that effect on many Ugandans. As for Americans, I hope they read this book and realize there is something more to Africa than elephants and tribal dancing and civil wars. As I said, the book is really about the Uganda of the present–a profoundly flawed country, but miraculously stable and politically vibrant and gloriously argumentative one. Maybe it takes the cartoonish figure of Idi Amin to get readers interested in learning about such a place, but I hope that by the end of the book they realize that there’s something far more ambiguous and multifaceted–more interesting–going on now than simple brutality.

Andrew Rice has written about Africa for The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and The Economist, among other publications. His article “The Book of Wilson,” published in The Paris Review, received a Pushcart Prize. Between 2002 and 2004, he lived in Uganda as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, an American nonprofit foundation. Prior to that, he worked for several newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Observer. A native of Columbia, South Carolina and a graduate of Georgetown University, he currently lives in Brooklyn.

(Photo of Duncan Laki courtesy of Vanessa Vick)