Title: The Unlikely Genius of Dr Cuthbert Kambazuma
Author: Chris Wadman
Publisher: Jonathan Ball
Cape Town / Johannesburg, South Africa, 2011
ISBN 9781868424603 / ISBN 978-1-86842-460-3
Softcover, 15x23 cm, 299 pages
Chris Wadman has written a novel of startling originality. In the best tradition of political satire, he combines humour and tragedy, and introduces a cast of characters that run riot across the near lunacy of the Zimbabwean landscape: Teddington is a man on the make and, after inadvertently delivering a busload of opposition politicians to Harare’s chief psychiatric facility, he is rewarded with a farm by top war veteran Hitler Jesus.
Not far away at The William Westward Children’s Home, the director and his ginger-haired sidekick struggle to feed and clothe the multitude of orphans until they chance upon, of all things, a moth exporting business. When Teddington’s farm can no longer support his spiraling ambitions, he turns his attentions to the well-run and now prosperous orphanage. Enter bogus goblin-catcher and con-man extraordinaire Cuthbert Kambazuma. Does he have the power to keep Teddington and the Green Bombers at bay, or will the orphanage fall into their rapacious hands?