The Day the Bishop Died… and Took the Truth With Him

There’s a moment in this story that made me pause.

Not because it was dramatic. Not because it was shocking. But because it was so… quiet.

A dying bishop lies in bed, priests shuffle around him pretending everything is normal, and somewhere outside the wind is dragging dust across a forgotten corner of Kenya. Everyone knows something is wrong. Everyone knows something is coming.

But no one actually does anything.

And then—just like that—a joke about killing the bishop stops being a joke.

That’s the strange, unsettling world of How Shall We Kill the Bishop by Lily Mabura. It’s a short story that begins almost playfully… and ends in a way that leaves you staring at the page, wondering what just happened.

What Kind of Story Is This?

This is a literary short story about guilt, power, and the quiet collapse of moral authority.

Tone: dark, ironic, unsettling
Pace: slow and atmospheric
Themes: religious hypocrisy, moral failure, postcolonial decay, temptation, ambiguity

This story is for readers who:

• Enjoy fiction that raises questions instead of giving answers

• Appreciate symbolism and layered meaning

• Like stories that linger in the mind long after they end

This story is NOT for readers who:

• Prefer clear explanations and tidy endings

• Want fast-paced plots with obvious villains and heroes

👉 The edition I read appears in the anthology A Life in Full and Other Stories, which you can find here:
https://amzn.to/3MtKL3p 

Why This Story Matters (The Emotional Core)

At first glance, the story seems simple.

A group of priests lives together in a remote Kenyan vicarage. Their bishop is dying. Everyone is waiting for the inevitable.

But beneath that simple setup is something darker.

This is not a story about holy men guiding a community. It’s a story about men who are supposed to be spiritual leaders but can barely guide themselves.

One priest struggles with cigarettes.
Another cannot stop obsessing over a lost lover.
Another resents the bishop for past humiliations.

Even the cook copes by pretending the bishop isn’t dying at all.

Everyone is avoiding something.

The bishop himself might be the most troubled of all. As death approaches, he becomes desperate to confess his sins—so desperate that he asks a priest to write them down and send them in a letter to a church official in Nairobi.

But here’s the cruel irony.

The confession—the one thing that might explain everything—is the one thing the story refuses to reveal.

And when that letter disappears, the truth disappears with it.

What stayed with me after reading this story is the feeling that institutions built on authority and morality can quietly decay from the inside. No dramatic collapse. Just slow neglect, human weakness, and unanswered guilt.

The story never tells us what the bishop did.

It simply leaves us wondering.

A Glimpse of the Story (No Spoilers… Mostly)

The story takes place in a lonely vicarage near a dried-up colonial military base in Kenya.

The land itself feels exhausted. Even the animals struggle to survive in the brittle grass and dusty wind.

Inside the vicarage live four priests and a cook, all revolving around the dying bishop.

Each of them carries their own private struggle:

• Fr. Ahmed is trying to quit cigarettes.

• Fr. Seif cannot stop thinking about the woman he loved.

• Fr. Dugo still resents how harshly the bishop tested him before admitting him to the priesthood.

• Dafala, the cook, pretends the bishop’s illness isn’t happening.

Then one day, something unusual happens.

A girl named Salima climbs over the compound wall.

No one calls the police. No one questions it too much. Instead, she becomes the vicarage’s new altar girl.

For a while, she becomes part of the strange rhythm of life in this dry, forgotten place.

And then she disappears.

Around the same time, the dying bishop entrusts Fr. Yasin with a deeply personal mission: write down his confession and send it to the Papal Nuncio in Nairobi.

But temptation intervenes.

And soon, a letter, a girl, and a dying man’s final wish collide in ways no one expects.

Who This Story Is Perfect For

You’ll enjoy this story if:

• You like fiction that explores moral ambiguity

• You enjoy symbolic storytelling that invites interpretation

• You read literature to think, not just to escape

You might struggle with this story if:

• You prefer clear answers and direct storytelling

• You want every mystery explained

👉 If this sounds like your kind of story, you can read it in A Life in Full and Other Stories here:
https://amzn.to/3MtKL3p 

My Honest Verdict

This story is fascinating—but also frustrating.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

What worked for me:

• The atmosphere. The dry, desolate setting mirrors the spiritual emptiness of the characters.

• The irony. A joke about killing the bishop slowly becomes prophecy.

• The moral tension. Every character feels human, flawed, and believable.

What didn’t work for me:

• The story refuses to explain itself.

• The bishop’s confession—the emotional core of the story—is never revealed.

But perhaps that’s exactly the point.

This isn’t a perfect story — but it’s an honest one.

And honest stories often leave us uncomfortable.

Final Thoughts

What makes How Shall We Kill the Bishop so memorable is not what it tells you.

It’s what it withholds.

The missing confession becomes the story’s most powerful symbol. We never learn what the bishop did, or why he felt such urgency to confess before dying.

Maybe the letter contained terrible sins.

Maybe it contained nothing at all—just a man frightened by his own conscience.

Either way, the truth disappears before it can reach anyone.

And that leaves the reader exactly where the characters are: standing in the dust, staring at a dead bishop, wondering what it all meant.

If you enjoy African literature that challenges you, unsettles you, and leaves you thinking long after you finish the last page, this story is worth your time.

👉 If you'd like to read the same anthology I did, you can find A Life in Full and Other Stories here:
https://amzn.to/3MtKL3p 

Similar Books You Might Like

If you enjoyed this story, you might also appreciate:

• Anthills of the Savannah

• The Concubine

Both explore power, morality, and the complicated nature of human leadership.