Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Return
You might have had a wonderful literary dish of Ngugi wa Thiong’o served with his novels entitled The river between, A grain of wheat, Devil on the cross, Petals of blood, Matigari, a play I will get married when I want, and the drama: The trial of Dedan Kimathi. Take time now to read The Return, one of Ngugi’s few short stories; you will still enjoy Ngugi’s characterization and style.
It appears that Ngugi, the greatest writer to have come from the East and Central Africa as the East African Standard of 8 September 2002 calls him, likes testing some of his characters in short stories before bringing them onto a larger picture in a novel.
The English couple who feature in Goodbye Africa become the Thompsons in ‘A grain of Wheat.’ Joshua in The River Between is an extended character from the Village Priest. What more in The Return as the main character, Kamau, is the prototype for Gikonyo in A grain of wheat.
The Return showcases Ngugi’s attempt to expose the trauma suffered by the Kenya’s Gikuyu people, both as individuals and on a community level, during the period that the British declared a state of emergency as it was struggling to contain the Mau Mau uprising.
The story takes you on a long road of hope that ends in disillusionment, it goes with a reader through the labyrinths of betrayal, it exposes the expectations of a man who longs to meet his wife after a five year period of detention; the very woman a man had lived with for only two weeks before being arrested.
Going through the return one passes through the heart breaking experience of how other people can use the plight of others to satisfy their personal interests. When Kamau arrived home, eagerly looking forward to the embrace of his wife, his mother brings a bombshell.
The episode is explained as follows: ‘She was a good daughter,’ his mother was explaining. ‘She waited for you and patiently bore all the ills of the land. Then Karanja came and said that you were dead. Your father believed him. She believed him too and mourned for a month. Karanja constantly paid us visits… Then she got a child. We could have kept her. But where is the land? Where is the food? With land consolidation, our last security was taken away. We let Karanja go with her…’
The bottom line however is that Karanja, son of Njogu, had never been in the same detention camp with Kamau. The falsification of Kamau’s death was therefore a plot to get hold of Kamau’s wife.
Typical of Ngugi, he toes the theme line from the beginning of the story to the end. All talk is centred on Kamau’s journey from the prison to home, his hopes, his aspirations, and the encounters he came across on the way.
You will have a feeling along the way in the story that Kamau’s journey would end to the contrary of his expectations. At one point Kamau is shown meeting women of his village on the river who could not even respond to his greeting.
Ngugi artistically explains the scene: ‘Is it well with you?’ A few voices responded. The other women, with tired and worn features, looked at him mutely as if his greeting was of no consequence. Why! Had he been so long in the camp? His spirits were dampened as he feebly asked: ‘Do you not remember me?’ Again they looked at him. They stared at him with cold, hard looks; like everybody else, they seemed to be deliberately refusing to know or own him.
The Return can be classified as a historical piece of literature that traces the problems associated with war on cultural trends and life. The author, Ngugi wa Thiongo is a literary and social activist. He was once a distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature as well as the Director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine.
The Return is published in the Anthology of East African Short Stories edited by Valerie Kibera.
It appears that Ngugi, the greatest writer to have come from the East and Central Africa as the East African Standard of 8 September 2002 calls him, likes testing some of his characters in short stories before bringing them onto a larger picture in a novel.
The English couple who feature in Goodbye Africa become the Thompsons in ‘A grain of Wheat.’ Joshua in The River Between is an extended character from the Village Priest. What more in The Return as the main character, Kamau, is the prototype for Gikonyo in A grain of wheat.
The Return showcases Ngugi’s attempt to expose the trauma suffered by the Kenya’s Gikuyu people, both as individuals and on a community level, during the period that the British declared a state of emergency as it was struggling to contain the Mau Mau uprising.
The story takes you on a long road of hope that ends in disillusionment, it goes with a reader through the labyrinths of betrayal, it exposes the expectations of a man who longs to meet his wife after a five year period of detention; the very woman a man had lived with for only two weeks before being arrested.
Going through the return one passes through the heart breaking experience of how other people can use the plight of others to satisfy their personal interests. When Kamau arrived home, eagerly looking forward to the embrace of his wife, his mother brings a bombshell.
The episode is explained as follows: ‘She was a good daughter,’ his mother was explaining. ‘She waited for you and patiently bore all the ills of the land. Then Karanja came and said that you were dead. Your father believed him. She believed him too and mourned for a month. Karanja constantly paid us visits… Then she got a child. We could have kept her. But where is the land? Where is the food? With land consolidation, our last security was taken away. We let Karanja go with her…’
The bottom line however is that Karanja, son of Njogu, had never been in the same detention camp with Kamau. The falsification of Kamau’s death was therefore a plot to get hold of Kamau’s wife.
Typical of Ngugi, he toes the theme line from the beginning of the story to the end. All talk is centred on Kamau’s journey from the prison to home, his hopes, his aspirations, and the encounters he came across on the way.
You will have a feeling along the way in the story that Kamau’s journey would end to the contrary of his expectations. At one point Kamau is shown meeting women of his village on the river who could not even respond to his greeting.
Ngugi artistically explains the scene: ‘Is it well with you?’ A few voices responded. The other women, with tired and worn features, looked at him mutely as if his greeting was of no consequence. Why! Had he been so long in the camp? His spirits were dampened as he feebly asked: ‘Do you not remember me?’ Again they looked at him. They stared at him with cold, hard looks; like everybody else, they seemed to be deliberately refusing to know or own him.
The Return can be classified as a historical piece of literature that traces the problems associated with war on cultural trends and life. The author, Ngugi wa Thiongo is a literary and social activist. He was once a distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature as well as the Director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine.
The Return is published in the Anthology of East African Short Stories edited by Valerie Kibera.
