Divided in four parts – "The Year of Our Loves and Friendships", "The Year of Her Passion", "The Years of Betrayal", and "Homecoming- The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is a bold attempt at telling the epic of Asian people in Africa. It is a novel concerning themes of love, passion, commitment and more importantly, identity. The narrator, Vikram Lall, is a Kenyan born Indian who grows up in an era where rebellion, confusion, and disruption were all prevalent. In this journal, you will learn about the characters, themes, and settings in the first half of this book.

Part One: The Year of Our Loves and Friendships
In the first section we are introduced to the Lall family, who are residents of Kenya. At once the reader is introduced to …show more content…

After briefly touching upon the present, Vic then proceeds with telling the story of his past. After returning to Kenya from Dar-es-salaam, Njo and Deepa's love is indeed rekindled. Unfortunately, this entire section is basically a battle between love and politics, and politics undoubtedly prevails. The first occasion where politics appears is when Njo and Vic meet for the first time since his return. Vic clearly has no interest for politics, but not because he is ignorant, which one may quickly assume, but I think it is more because he is confused. Njo is loyal to Jumo (black leader) because he, like Jum, is a native of Africa. Annie and Billy are loyal to the queen because they are British. Vic is neither and so he has no idea what to believe. This also is an allusion to the "In-Between". When Vic musters up the courage to say, "They [Mau Mau] are evil, those who kill children" Njo dismisses it immediately by saying "And what about those who kill our grandfathers? Innocent people die in war, this is the reality." (Page 167) The author does a great job at depicting the conflicting viewpoints. It makes the reader question tradition vs. modernity. When Deepa is forced into married Dilip simply because he is a wealthy Indian boy who resides in England, confusion heightens. Why Vic's parents would insist that Deepa followed Indian traditions when they themselves do not, I still question. Perhaps they faced many obstacles in their marriage that they wanted their