Colonial Adventure and Other Stories

About the Book

Colonial Adventure is an epic in free-form verse depicting a slice of British colonial history (1936 - 1977) as experienced by individuals on both sides of the racial conflict. It starts with a British couple who establish a large agricultural operation in what was then Southern Rhodesia, later Rhodesia and now Zimbawe. With the rise of black nationalism, the black majority rebels, leading to a brutal civil war that damages every segment of the population. Of the other shorter stories, all in free-form verse, one concerns a female architect from Haiti, another a retired actor and a third a young boy abandoned by his mother. A fourth poem addresses an over-reaction in the climate of fear about Islam and a fifth an outrage against a teenager seeking to free herself from family domination. Simba Kubwa is a dramatic monologue conducted by an African dictator.

About the Author

H. Ann Ackroyd was born and raised in southern Africa before moving to Europe as a teenager. Later she and her husband lived a number of years in Brazil before finally settling in Canada on the shores of Lake Erie.