Mission, a Novel Set in Kenya by Philip Spires, is Published by Libros International
Summary
Four years after completing the first Kenyan book, Philip Spires returned to the same characters and began Mission, which would re-examine issues raised in A Fool’s Knot and present them at a deeper level of analysis.The novel travelled with Philip and his wife, Caroline, as they moved to Brunei and then to the United Arab emirates, but only as a set of five files in Wordperfect 5.1 format, stored on an old-style floppy disk.The novel deals with the concept of identity, seen through filters of poverty, religion, politics and, underpinning everything, an idea of justice, a continuum within which each character is seen to pursue some personal mission.Michael, a missionary priest in Kenya, has just killed Munyasya, a retired army officer.It was completed in the early 1980s and was read only by a handful of acquaintances.The novel travelled with Philip and his wife, Caroline, as they moved to Brunei and then to the United Arab emirates, but only as a set of five files in Wordperfect 5.1 format, stored on an old-style floppy disk.And then Libros International appeared and the book was accepted for publication.A month ago, along with the had-written A Fool’s Knot, the author also retrieved from long term storage a typescript of the missing, original central chapter.