A Kenyan “Giver’s” trove of memory Bwana Karani and From Mtoto to Mzee By Mervyn Maciel A review by Cyprian Fernandes At the heart of Lois Lowry’s superb futuristic children’s novel are two central characters: the Receiver and the Giver. They have lived in a community where there is no war, suffering, colour, sex, music or love. There is no greed, gluttony or any of the seven deadly sins. This is the ultimate sanitised society. One boy is nominated every few generations or so to receive the community’s collective memory from the aging Giver who know just about everything there is to know about all the wars, genocide, crimes including murder, everything that wrong and everything that right about a world that virtually destroyed the planet. The Giver is the sole archive, the memory banks, and he has instant recall. My friend Tony Reg D’Souza, a former teacher among other things, is somewhat of a “giver”, in the sense that his memory of Goan history in East Africa, especi...