Book: Weep Not, Child
Author: Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Publication Year: 1964
Genre: Historical Fiction
Country: Kenya
Book: A Grain of Wheat
Author: Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Publication Year: 1967
Genre: Historical Fiction
Additional Resources
Book: Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of
Britain's Gulag in Kenya
Author: Caroline Elkins
Publication Year: 2005
Genre: History
If you listen very carefully, someone, somewhere in the western world is giving voice to the plaintive cry: They’re trying to erase our history!
Which usually translates as: They’re daring to highlight uncomfortable events in our history that have long been suppressed because they are not conducive to our self-image as knights in shining armour (see also: keep politics out of it, which means: keep your politics out of it). The word ‘erase’ here is synonymous with ‘uncovering’ or ‘rediscovering’.
Thus do we turn to Kenya, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and the Mau-Mau Uprising.
The two books I have chosen to read for Kenya are both written by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o; another writer I have long been meaning to read. They focus on the Mau-Mau Uprising (or Kenya Emergency), which took place in Kenya during much of the 1950s.
Weep Not, Child is set in the years at the beginning of the uprising. A Grain of Wheat is set on the eve of Kenyan independence from Britain in 1963. A series of flashbacks inform the present day narrative and the consequences the uprising had on the surviving characters.
The Mau-Mau Uprising was a direct reaction to colonial rule and to white settlers using low-paid and enforced labour from the indigenous population. The uprising resulted in the deaths of somewhere in the region of 50,000 Kenyans (although estimates of the death count vary wildly, depending on who you ask).
The uprising was eventually quelled by British forces and an estimated 1.5million Kenyans were herded into concentration camps or placed in villages under military guard. In order to make Kenyans confess to having taken an oath to the Mau-Mau cause, torture, sexual violence and even castration were liberally used by the colonial forces.
To draw attention to any of this, of course, is to be accused of erasing history by those for whom cognitive dissonance is an occupational hazard. The British establishment likes to brag about their empire, but the British Empire is almost never taught in UK schools. If it was, this and countless other atrocities would have to be discussed.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o grew up in the years of the uprising. He was 14 when the rebellion began in 1952. His younger brother was shot in the back and killed because he didn’t hear a order to halt, due to being deaf (a fictional version appears in A Grain of Wheat). His half brother fought for the Mau-Mau (the Kenya Land and Freedom Army) and died in action. His mother was one of the many victims of British torture.
Understandably, these events colour and inform much of Ngũgĩ’s early work. Weep Not, Child, his first published novel, is half bildungsroman and half autobiographical novel. Njoroge, the main character, is roughly the same age as Ngũgĩ’ during the timeline of the novel.
Njoroge‘s teenage ambition is to become as educated as possible, but his attempt to enter university are ultimately frustrated by the ongoing violence and colonial repression. Ngũgĩ himself wrote the novel while studying at Makerere University in Uganda.
In the same year as Weep Not, Child was published, Njoroge moved to England on a scholarship to study for an MA at Leeds University. He published one more novel, The River Between (1965) before 1967’s, A Grain of Wheat.
One villager, Kihika, became a freedom fighter, killed a British officer at the height of the rebellion, but was caught and hanged by the occupying forces. A series of flashbacks seen through the eyes of several point of view characters slowly tease out the truth of Kihika’s capture and execution.
All same acts of brutality are depicted in A Grain of Wheat as they are in Weep Not, Child. Indeed, there are many themes and tropes that feature across both books. The POV character who contemplates suicide, but ultimately decides against it. The monolithic British figure of authority who represents the sadism and inhumanity of white colonial rule. The hope of salvation and redemption through political figures.
Ironic then that Ngũgĩ’s next novel, Petals of Blood, written ten years later in 1977, brought him to the attention of the Kenyan Vice President, Daniel arap Moi, resulting in his arrest and being held without charge for nearly a year. When he was released at the end of 1978, Ngũgĩ was forced into exile until 2002.
Here, of course, we find analogues with other featured writers in this project. Nawal El Saadawi, who was later imprisoned in the same prison where she met Firdaus, the protagonist of Woman At Point Zero (also published in 1977 – see: Egypt). Galsan Tschinag was a victim of holding views heretical to the ruling Mongolian elite (see: Mongolia). All of our featured Afghan writers (see; Afghanistan) have been forced into exile more than once in their lives as the country lurches from one authoritarian regime to the next.
Being a writer of any description (or indeed an artist of any kind) is a dangerous business when the world is run by depots who cannot stand to have their despotism held up to the light or to the mirror of art.
We shall find many more writers living in exile as we walk this path around the
world. They are usually forced to flee for their lives, but it is also the
freedom to create that impels their exile. Even James Joyce had to go into
self-imposed exile in order to write about Ireland and Dublin. And as Orwell
observed, the creative arts cannot flourish under authoritarianism, because
creative effort requires real time feedback in which to thrive. In the darkness
of political repression, it withers like a flower in a gloomy flat.
Sadly, we will also have to confront colonialism, British, Belgium, French, Portuguese, Spanish, American, Australian (see a theme here?) et. al. many more times on this journey. But rather than listen to those plaintive voices who would rather bury the past and pretend things like murder, torture and collective punishment are only committed by the other side, whoever we decide that it this week, we should and shall continue to listen to the people who experienced these crimes against humanity: Crimes against the humanity crimes of both the victims and those committing them.
Fiction might simplify and sensationalise these events, but all media does the same for brevity and framing a narrative. The fact some people cry ‘erasure’ is because they have only heard the version of historical events that makes them feel good about themselves. Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, and many other ‘colonised’ writers are an important corrective to this westernised myopia. Like many other writers in this series, his work is a well to which I will return countless times in the future
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
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