The broken word

by Adam Foulds

A narrative sequence of extraordinary power - the first book of poetry from a major new writer.Set in the 1950s, The Broken Word is an extraordinary poetic sequence that animates and illuminates a dark, terrifying period in British colonial history.The combination here of language and imagery that feel utterly contemporary, and subject matter – tribal violence and subsequent retribution – that seems almost Homeric, gives the narrative all the febrile energy of classical drama, re-charged and re-imagined. Tom has returned to his family's farm in Kenya for the summer vacation between school and university when he is swept up by the events of the Mau Mau uprising. Beginning with sporadic, brutal attacks by dispossessed Kikuyu on the British now occupying their land – attacks often executed with nothing more than traditional panga knives – the conflict escalates as the terrified British stop at nothing to re-impose order, eventually driving most of the Kikuyu population into the prison cam