In Joseph R. Alila's THE THIRTEENTH WIDOW, a one-sided war between two boys (Omolo and Tom) in middle school turns tragic in their middle age as Chief Omolo's secret acts not only drive Tom Okoth Oloo to his grave, but also unleash a viral plague that consumes a whole village and beyond. When Charles Okoth (Tom's elder brother) returns to his desolate Korondo village to redeem Tom's honor, he betroths Maria, one of Tom's many widows, who leads him to the haunting contents of a secret diary, in which Tom paints himself as an inexcusable victim of Chief Omolo's evil schemes. The diary further...

Billionaire American businessman Chief Chuki is a notable within the American high society and a venerable name in the African nation of Goldia, where he holds the highest honorary title of Chief among his Oyi people. When Chief Chuki gets entangled in a business deal with rival Goldian Army Generals, he finds himself held hostage in a land in which he is revered. Yet even with his proximity to the wheels of power on both sides of the pond, he cannot shout for help because of the desire to keep his good name. Second, his Goldian wife has delivered a son and becomes the beneficiary of the...

In "THE MILAYI CURSE, Joseph R. Alila (the Author of "Sunset on Polygamy") tells a story about a centuries-old conflict between two ancestral cousins, the Jamokos and Milayis, both members of the Jokamilayi-a fictional Luo (Kenyan) clan. The conflict is of a spiritual as well as social nature, with one early Christian Priest (Father James O'Kilghor) struggling to make sense of an alien culture and reconcile the Jokamilai. It is a tale about spirituality, honor, betrayal, pride, poverty, wealth, and uneasy kinship in fast-changing times, with Christianity and formal education breaking class...

In Joseph R. Alila's anthropological spiritual novel, THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, the arrival of a colonial master in Kenya presents a new spiritual reality to a very religious people, who quickly adapt to the new spiritual situation in the land. Now, as a battery of "colonial forces" conspire against Africa's old way of life, wizards and prophets, who are losing clients of the ordinary kind to the new Christian houses of worship, quickly adapt to the new spiritual reality, even if it only means taking funny-sounding Greek names. The heroine in this novel, Angelina Nyangi (The Wise One) is...