The Old Drift Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, The Mighty Zambezi River and our BookBrowse Review of The Old Drift.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. In many ways, Zambia itself is the novel's main character. How does Zambia adapt? What does it endure? And for its inhabitants, what is it like to be in a relationship with Zambia?
2. The first two of the novel's numbered parts—The Grandmothers, The Mothers, The Children—emphasize maternity. How do these images of womanhood compare to the images of the female body that you usually see in novels? What role does fatherhood play in The Old Drift?
3. In "The Falls," fever-laden Percy grabs Gavuzzi's hat (with a patch of hair), leading Ada to briefly abandon young Lina, who then delivers a debilitating blow to N'gulube, whom Percy later riddles with bullets, mistaking him for a pig. Percy is not prosecuted; in fact, he wins a silver cup from the local shooting club. When we later meet Bernadetta, we learn her father was N'gulube. How does this "tiny chaos" (as the swarm narrators call it) serve as a metaphor for the rise and fall of empires? Told entirely in Percy's voice, how does "The Falls" frame the rest of the novel?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.