THE COLOURED VINE

About The Book

When Father Costello, a young Catholic Mission priest, engages in an illicit romance with a teenage indigenous girl, Mary Chali, that sets the stage for defining interracial relationships and the conflicts of the heart with priestly responsibilities.

It all started when Mary Chali gave birth to a newborn boy in 1934. The young priest was immediately removed from the mission in order to prevent a scandal in the church.

Father Costello’s third generation descendant, Chiwala Samoa, embarks on a journey of self-discovery and actualisation both socially and professionally, overcoming the constraints of an obsessed female colleague at the top of the corporate echelons who believes she was born to have it all.

While his life was taking unexpected turns, his long-lost father, Richard Chali, was also confronted with a number of obstacles to overcome. They were on a similar path, with neither knowing what had happened or was happening in the other’s life until fate brought the two lives together in a shared, but unpleasant, confluence.