The Nobel Prize-nominated Kenyan writer's powerful first novel Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a garbage heap and look into their futures: Njoroge is to attend school, while Kamau will train to be a carpenter. But this is Kenya, and the times are against them: In the forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against the white government, and the two brothers and their family need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up. The first East African novel published in English, Weep Not, Child is a moving book about the effects of the infamous Mau Mau uprising on the lives of ordinary men and women, and on one family in particular.

ok ( )

High Upper-Intermediate

The main theme of this novel is opposition. If you've ever said to yourself “I'd like to read a really good novel where the main theme is opposition in all it's forms”, then this is the book for you. There are other themes, land for instance, but everything ties in to opposition. Take the passage in chapter one where Ngũgĩ describes the landscape, and the opposition between the various ethnic groups is picked out in the lay of it.

Or the passage in chapter five where the children learn to say “I am standing up”. It's a very funny scene, but it's also a metaphor for a conquered people who are just learning to stand up and oppose the oppressor. It's so subtle, this metaphor, when you read the passage. The whole book is. So supple. Like gossamer, turning under the wind from your mind and only showing certain meanings when the light falls just right on it.

But enough of this damned poetry. There's also a good story. It's set during the Mau Mau rebellion. I knew nothing about that so I looked up the wikipedia article. I had to stop three quarters of the way through as it made me feel physically sick. The denouement of the novel had a physical impact on me that I wasn't expecting.

I'd rate this five stars but I read The River Between a few years ago and know the author can do better. ( )