topics: |  fiction | africa | kenya

[Written while he was under arrest. Quote:] My cell was the first to be raided:
it was difficult to know what they were looking for... Suddenly, the sergeant
saw piles of toilet paper and pounced on them.  Then as if delirious with joy
and triumph, he turned to the presideing officer, and announced: "Here is the
book, Sir, on toilet paper".  "Seize it!" the officer told him.

This remarkable and symbolic novel centers around Wariinga's tragedy and uses
it to tell a story of contemporary Kenya faced with the "satan of capitalism."
Ngugi has directed his writing even more firmly towards the commitment that he
shows in Writers in Politics and Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary. The novel
was written secretly in prison on the only available material -- lavatory
paper. It was discovered when almost complete but unexpectedly returned to him
on his release. Such was the demand for the original Gikuyu edition that it
reprinted on publication.

Amazon Review 5 star - A Beautiful Epic of Modern Kenya - 2005-04-24
I really loved this book. I've read a few of Ngugi's books and this is my
favorite: lyrical, sad, and yet optimistic and celebratory at the same time. It
has a number of strengths. Its poetic verses and style were reminiscent of
Kikuyu oral literature; despite this version being in English there was a great
translator. I can't read Kikuyu but Ngugi writes in it and says it can convey
some of the richness of the stories better than English can. I can't imagine it
being better than it was though! It was a great story of true Kenyan heroes, a
love story, a scathing condemnation of corruption, materialism, poverty,
neo-colonialism and self-hatred in Kenya and all over the world, and a truly
feminist story as well.