[Bitterness] is the story of Besa, a young boy from a poor Zambian family. He goes to University, and finds love and happiness in learning, but the disintegration of the country, economically and socially, undermines him. He becomes disillusioned with the anti-intellectual Zambian authorities, and ashamed of his origins in front of his wealthier girlfriend (who is not accepted by Besa’a family). Besa is forced to examine his feelings towards family, tradition, education and even his home country.
The main problem I had with the book, was that it was ridiculously didactic. Dialogue sounds like it has been copied from University text books, rather than coming out of young people’s mouths. Katulwende uses the excuse of showing us Besa’s notebooks to enter into academic essays several pages long that are tangential to the narrative, and important issues, such as ‘negritude’ or the ‘black experience’ are discussed in terms of Greek metaphysical philosophy and referencing as many authorities as academic papers. If I had wanted to read a textbook on Zambia I would have done. I was trying to read a novel. This was neither of those things, and much less informative than both because of it.