‘We Are All Birds of Uganda' by Hafsa Zayyan: You can’t stop birds from flying

“If you do not know where you’ve come from, you will never really understand who you are and where you are going,” Sameer tells Maryam as he goes to Uganda to learn about some pieces of himself and his family history. In her historical debut novel, Hafsa Zayyan explores the lives of an Indian family in 1960s Uganda through Hassan and Sameer in present-day London.

Sameer, a 26-year-old lawyer of Indian descent, is thriving in London. His firm offers him a chance to move to Singapore to help launch a new branch — a fast track to becoming a partner. He’s excited to prove himself.

But he struggles to tell his parents the news, fearing they won’t approve. In Indian culture, children are often expected to join the family business to show gratitude for their parents' sacrifices.

“We have worked very hard, Sameer, to give you this life you have,” his father says. “We made so many sacrifices that you wouldn’t understand. We’ve built an empire from nothing. There comes a point, son, at which it is only right that you should start giving back.”

As he buys himself time, something tragic happens to his friend, Rahool, forcing Sameer to take a six-week leave from work. At home, his parents are thrilled—finally, they think, their son has come to his senses and will join the family business, not knowing that this was never in his plans.

While at home, he meets a family friend, Mr Shah, a successful Indian businessman. Mr Shah tells him stories about Uganda. These stories push Sameer to want to visit—to see, feel, and understand a place that holds the roots of his family’s past.

Through letters written by Hassan—Sameer’s grandfather—to his late wife, Amira, we are transported to 1960s Uganda under Idi Amin’s rule. Hassan recounts life before, during, and after independence. Indians in Uganda acted as intermediaries between the British and Africans, allowed to do business while Africans were not. This bred resentment, as Indians often treated Africans as inferior, a dynamic also reflected in Karim Hirji’s Growing Up With Tanzania.

The idea of independence unsettles Hassan. “The idea of independence makes me uncomfortable,” he writes. He fears what will happen to the Asian community without British rule. His fears are not unfounded, given the tensions between Indians and Africans.

At independence, Indians are given a choice: remain British or become Ugandan. Born and raised in Uganda, Hassan chooses Uganda — the only home he has known. But this decision haunts him when Idi Amin expels all Asians.

“I was born here; I never knew India. Papa came here in youth, at the time when you had the freedom to choose who you wished to be. He chose to become Ugandan; he came to shed himself of India. And as a result, my dear, I have no other home.”

Raised with privilege, Sameer is initially blind to racism in England. That changes when a new boss excludes him and makes distasteful remarks about Muslims and his culture. He thinks about his Black friend, Jeremiah, and wonders what he had been blind to when they were growing up. Because the truth is, perhaps racism is far more pervasive when you're Black.

Take, for example, how his grandfather treated Abdullah, a man who raised him. They became close. Abdullah managed his shops better than anyone else. But Hassan never considered making him a shareholder. He always referred to him as a servant. And it was a business family, he said — an excuse for excluding him.

In Uganda, Sameer falls in love, not only with a country that feels like home but also with a version of himself he never thought he’d meet, drawn out by his love for Maryam, Abdullah’s great-granddaughter. She carries herself with quiet confidence, and her dedication to healing others as a doctor is deeply admirable. Sameer begins to see who he is and what he can become through loving her.

“Maryam has awakened something inside of him, a hunger for knowledge. He did not know before he met her that beyond a partner in body and mind, he was looking for a partner in spirit.”

Zayyan’s debut explores identity, belonging, loss, family, home, friendship, and race. It’s a powerful read that questions colonialism's legacy on Africans and Asians. She also points to a growing trend—seen in Tanzania, too—where an influx of Chinese migrants, some undocumented, are taking on small-scale jobs that many poor locals rely on to survive and support their families.

“Now we’ve got the Chinese migrating here — a lot of them and many illegally. And they’re not doing what you guys did — they’re doing what a local Ugandan would do, the small-scale stuff.”

Jane Shussa is passionate about books, coffee, nature, and travel. She serves as a Senior Digital Communications Officer for Twaweza East Africa.