The Winding Road

In the light of the prevailing situation in parts of Africa where too little is recorded about the life experiences of people who have had a variety of challenging experiences in childhood and in youth, it becomes important to have an autobiography of one who has struggled through the problems of his time, and succeeded in gaining recognition for his efforts in his own country and abroad. The autobiography of Kosonike Koso-Thomas portraits the writer in a clear image of a man who had to confront obstacles in his path as he sought to obtain the education that he felt would lead him to a profession that became an obsession with him only late in his school days. As the son of a clergyman and school headmaster, he seemed destined to follow his father into the church after his older brothers had left school and set out to embark on careers away from the ministry of the Christian gospel. However, a planned visit of his country’s Minister of Education to his school while in his last year of study, to address school leavers on the government’s programme aimed at encouraging more students to pursue scientific careers, persuaded him to switch from humanities to the sciences and changed his family’s expectation of him as a future preacher of the gospel. This book clearly presents the author’s early life and youthful experiences and contains critical commentary of the social and cultural structures in his country. It also takes the reader through the twists and turns, and the crests and troughs in the life of a foreign student in the United Kingdom in the mid-nineteen fifties to the early nineteen sixties during which time he pursued his university education. This is a story of perseverance in the midst of obstacles and programme detours which often threatened to frustrate him.