A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiongo

Because the book is about retribution and forgiveness, I shall begin with a confession that this is my first time reading a Ngugi book. Imagine the shame! The book came highly recommended by my husband who couldn’t reserve his judgment over the fact that I hadn’t read it. He spoke of how the book begins with the quote from 1 Corinthians 15:36 "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain”. He closed his eyes as he described it and made it sound so spiritual like this is the one book whose reading improves one’s chances at the pearly gates. Knowing I may need all the bargaining tools before St. Peter, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. He gave me an overview of what he thought the book was all about, but as you know no two persons ever read the same book. So I decided to read it for myself if only to redeem myself in his eyes.

It is only four days to independence and the people of Rungei village and Kenya in general are excited that finally “uhuru” is here. The atmosphere is charged with anticipation of the black man’s freedom. There is singing; random dancing and preparations for the ceremony in the village are on full gear. While the narration emphasizes on the essence of “uhuru” and the festivities around, the writer seems to be on a mission to ensure that the reader is not lost on the struggles that ordinary people underwent to achieve the feat.

This is a story of sacrifice. A story of the power of choice and what exactly influences man to determine his path in life. Most importantly, it is a story of guilt and redemption. The protagonist Mugo is an unusual man, he is quiet and aloof to the events surrounding the attainment of “uhuru”. Us quiet people always seem suspicious to extroverts who are ever unable to predict our plans or actions. The mystery gives us power over people and disarms them in a way. This is the case with Mugo. He is the village hero for his actions in detention. He is the man who stood against the whipping of a pregnant woman, the leader of a hunger strike in detention. Despite of being whipped and placed in solitary confinement, he did not break and, most importantly, he did not confess the oath. The villagers are full of song for their hero but are set to be shocked out of their dreamland on Independence Day when Mugo finally makes his confession. When you read the book please don’t jump to conclusion that all the quiet people are as messed up as Mugo just because I said we’re deep and dark.

Kihika is portrayed as an idealist dedicated to the cause of black self-rule. He kills a white District Officer, plans and executes the attack of a police station among many other “heroic” acts. He’s deemed a true warrior and is willing to die for his country. Actually he does die. One morning the residents wake up to his body inexplicably dangling on a tree. His death causes panic, despair, bitterness and a thirst for revenge. What will thrill you is the story of how Kihika meets his death.

Gikonyo, Karanja and Kihika are childhood friends. Growing up, they went to see the “long iron snake” together, sang and played the guitar together. While Kihika was making his idealistic speeches about liberation to anyone who would listen, Gikonyo and Karanja were chasing after Mumbi, the village beauty. Gikonyo finally wins this contest of charms. The two get married and spend a few months together in bliss but soon the white man comes knocking on the doors of those who were perceived to be aiding the movement. The men are required to confess their oath or be taken to detention camps. Kihika and Gikonyo refuse to confess. Karanja confesses and becomes a home guard. He turns out to be the most a ruthless piece of work, treating fellow Africans worse than animals, whipping, hunting and killing them with brutal force.

Before you put that self-righteous hat on, think again about what you would do for your selfish interests.  Think of how quickly you hawk your soul to the system for a few coins, think of how easily you would step over colleagues backs to get that promotion or small favour. Think of how easily you take that bribe or give it out to avoid an “uncomfortable situation”. Think of how you’d watch the man with the money skin a man alive and not stand up to object. There’s a little Karanja in all of us. I digress, back to the review.

Eventually Karanja is made Chief, and even at some point sires a child with Mumbi….of course if you read the book you’ll get to know how that happened.

Gikonyo spends six years in detention dreaming of better days and his return home to Mumbi. Thoughts of her keep gnawing at him and he longs for the day that he will be back in her arms again. The years in detention are not easy and a man can break. When he has had enough, he confesses his oath and is set free. You can imagine the guilt weighing on him as he walks back home to his wife and mother having betrayed the cause. You can also imagine the slap to his face when he finds his wife nursing Karanja’s baby.

What sacrifices would you have made for the cause? Would you have conceded and been the white man’s lapdog or would you rather have lived and died for the cause as Kihika did? This is how Karanja rationalizes it when Mumbi spits at him for not being man enough to go to the forest and fight like the others had. He says” the coward lived to see his mother while the brave was left dead on the battlefield.”

Each of the characters in the story is made to pick a battle. They choose differently and for various reasons and as I said this is a story of choices and guilt but most importantly it is a story of retribution. The book was first published in 1967; four years after independence when the collaborators had seemingly gotten the best that self-rule had to offer. As the others had been busy fighting in the forest, some collaborated and were given positions of influence with their children being schooled in the white man’s ways and language. At independence, those who went to the forest felt betrayed and harboured bitter feelings.  The book seems to be a rallying call for all Kenyans to unite regardless of the past and build a new nation. The story gives hope to the freedom fighters that in the new Kenya they too can find their place as long as they bury the feelings of the past.

Reading this book made my understanding of right and wrong a bit blurred. What defines a hero? Are villains inherently bad people or victims of circumstances well outside their control? Can choices be made rationally or are they mere games of chance that nevertheless burden you with unexpected consequences. My head hurts from thinking. You have a read and share what the book evokes.

The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg

Imagine a girl being raised as a boy because of societal pressure. Imagine after years of living under this guise, a person having to readjust into a woman in their adulthood because the same society requires them to get married for purposes of reproduction. To be more precise, reproduce a male child. Imagine the psychological effect of this and imagine that this is real and happened as recently as 2011.

The author of this book is a Swedish investigative journalist who goes to Afghanistan hoping to understand the issues affecting women parliamentarians. What she stumbles upon is even more telling than what she’d set out to find. The story is told through the actual lives and experiences of five women. The author visits Azita to interview her on her experience as a woman parliamentarian in the post-Taliban government. It is here that she makes a rather unexpected discovery that Azita is raising one of her four girls as a boy. Fate has not looked favourably upon her (at least according to her society) and she has had the bad luck of giving birth to girls only.

Raising one of her girls as a boy is not deemed unusual in her society and apparently reflects a path taken by many others before her in various cultures across the world to correct the “defect”. Her society actually lauds this effort believing that raising one of your daughters as a boy brings good luck and increases a mother’s chance of conceiving a real boy next time. You see…..in her culture, it is better to be anything but a woman. Having a son, even a made up one, brings her honour in the society and raises her profile more so now that she’s a representative of the people.

In her travails, the author discovers that the practice is commonplace in Kabul. The different lives and circumstances of these girls bring out various themes. It becomes apparent to her that an afghan woman is predestined to get married and reproduce. She is a commodity that men trade at the time of marriage and her value is determined by her physical beauty, virginity and reputation. She is to bear as many children as her husband desires. She is to submit to her father’s will and must at all times during her entire life be under the protection of a man. Should she want to leave her house, she must be accompanied by a male; the absurdity of a seventy-year old woman being “protected” by a 7 year old boy notwithstanding.

One of the girls raised as a boy (bacha posh) her entire life has reached puberty and is expected to make the switch from being a boy into womanhood. Any lingering on her part and continued association with boys could tarnish her reputation and damage her chances of finding a good husband. In Afghanistan “reputation is more than symbolic; it is a commodity that is hard to restore once it has been damaged”. She resists this transition expected of her and argues that she is a boy! She insists on this despite numerous talks with her mother who is desperate to convince her to ditch her boyish ways and accept her femininity.

This then poses the question as to whether gender is inborn or a matter of nurturing. How can a child who has been raised as a boy be expected to switch back to womanhood and be a wife and be a mother? She plans to escape this new “reality” by either running away to her relatives in America or undergoing surgery in Iran to become a boy and cement her freedom.

Another former bacha posh, now married, admits to various struggles in her married life and questions that constantly plague her mind. How does a man sleep with another man? When questioned as to whether she’d prefer to be with a woman, she replies in the negative…..she views women as weak. How is a boy expected to be a mother? She is a wife and a mother and she still questions her identity. In the story she ends up been given talaq (divorce) and wonders if it had something to do with the fact that she was a boy who turned into a woman. To an afghan woman, divorce means losing everything, she has to return to her father because a woman must be under a male at all times and as a result loses her children because the man “makes” the children (note this double standard: while trying to conceive, a woman with no sons is accused of not being capable of making a boy child).

The bottom line of the story and the struggles of a bacha posh are all centred on the main difference between a girl and a boy in this patriarchal society which is freedom. The boys have it, the girls do not. Azita was also a bacha posh in her youth and tries to explain to the author why the non-governmental organisations churning billions into programmes geared toward empowerment of women have miserably failed. She notes how these organizations are terribly misguided about the afghan woman’s situation by thinking that their problems can be solved by discarding the burka. She muses that she’d gladly wear two burkas for the promise of freedom to choose whatever is good for her. According to her “a great many people in this world would be willing to throw their gender in a second if it could be traded for freedom”.

Closer home, ours is also a patriarchal society. I must concede that women have made considerable gains in recent times.However, the effects of patriarchy still linger and some practices are still deeply rooted. I remember having a discussion with one of my friends (my mothers’ age) who had the rotten luck of only “making” girls. She recounted how she had endured pregnancies and labour (women who’ve undergone labour can relate) trying to get a boy. Despite three failed attempts to her name, she was determined to do it a fourth “lucky” time. She endured yet another difficult pregnancy and long labour and finally brought another being into the world. These were the days where there was no way of telling the sex of the baby before delivery, one had to wait patiently until the baby’s arrival.

Weak from fatigue and about to see how well she’d done (because you know… it’s a test of womanhood), the nurse held the baby up for her asking cheerfully “what sex is it?”  In her frail state all she could manage was a scream!! It was that of desperation. Another failed attempt!!!

Research indicates that with the advancement in technology which has enabled women to know the sex of the child as early as nineteen weeks into the pregnancy, millions of female foetuses have been aborted throughout the world. The rejection of girls by society is not only manifest from the millions of abortions of female foetuses. Women have claimed their space in politics, corporates and other professions. Here, is where the real ugliness and true rejection of the woman in our modern day society takes place. A woman who dares to excel more than permitted by the society is shunned not only by men but mostly by fellow women. As the author notes “No group can be truly suppressed until its members are trained and convinced to suppress one another”.

In the corporate world an unhealthy competition is created between women who are set up as each other’s competition often to their detriment. In the political world a woman is often shamed as immoral and (oddly so) “unwomanly” for working late hours with men. In the book, this is one of the potent weapons used by Azita’s husband to extort money from her. He threatens to accuse her of being a common whore who sleeps with her male colleagues, confident that this would hasten her fall from grace.

This culture of shaming women is evident in our society where it is considered so unfathomable that a woman could be good at her job and that her ascent to the top must have been aided by a series of trysts with her superiors! This is the means by which women are being robbed of their power, because to accept that a woman can be as efficient as a man would be acknowledging that she is not the weaker sex.

So the real question is how free are we as women?!

The book will challenge all you think you know about gender, identity and some of the societal contradictions that we are forced to grapple with on a daily basis. It leaves you with a feeling of hope for the women of Afghanistan and also a dark feeling of despair. On a personal level, it greatly disturbed me that women have to go through this in modern day world. I’m still coming to terms with the feelings it evoked. That’s why you should read it.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

I recently traveled to Kisii town via Kisumu. In my bag I had two books, Robert Greene’s 48 laws of power—which is a permanent fixture— and How to stop worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie. You’d think I had enough books for the trip right? Wrong!! As I waited for my flight back to Nairobi, I went into the bookshop to check out the books as I always do whenever I’m at the Kisumu Airport. I looked around and obviously I loved everything I saw but this time I had to restrain myself and walk out with only one book.  It was a close tie between Good to great by Jim Collins and the Godfather by Mario Puzo. The Godfather won.

I’ve heard people talk about the movie adaptation which I haven’t watched by the way. And just as well because I am a firm believer that the book is always better than the movie….a true book lover knows this. Oh please I’ll not even debate this with you, you…movie person!

“Italians have a little joke that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that's why they have godfathers.” 

The book sets out a compelling story on the Italian mafia in America and its origins in Sicily. The running theme is the constant struggle in the life of the protagonist Michael Corleone whose father is a mafia boss, to accept the life he was born into or to rebel against it and live a normal all American life. In part-rebellion, he enlists as a US marine defying his father and dates an American girl whom he makes sure doesn’t have a drop of Italian blood.

His struggle to merge the two worlds is however apparent and this first comes out at his younger sister’s wedding. While trying to explain what his father does to his girlfriend Kay, he repeatedly defends his father for the crimes he does (which he doesn’t consider to be crimes by the way). At some point it seems that Michael could succeed in staying completely out of the Corleone family business until his father the Don Corleone is shot. Michael finally snaps when his father’s associates and competitors persistently try to kill him.

He approaches his older brother Sonnie Corleone who is holding fort while his father is in hospital and offers to kill the man who conspired to kill his father. This he does in the most brazen attack at an Italian hotel and in broad daylight! That is an open act of aggression and is bound to spark a war of the mafia families, which it promptly does and Michael discreetly flees to Sicily for safety.

While in Sicily, he receives news of Sonnie’s death and it becomes more apparent that he should take over the family business after his father. He learns of the origins of the mafia which helps put his father’s life into perspective. As a rebellion against the government and its systems; the mafia was viewed by the Sicilians as a means by which one could get the type of justice which was not guaranteed by formal government.  The people relied on a “godfather” to sort out their troubles and get justice. The Mafia’s golden rule was and remains a code of silence, an unwritten rule to keep the government out of their affairs (“Omerta”).

In one of the scenes in the book, the Don is approached by a man who had all along believed in the justice system and vowed not to seek the help of the mafia. He’d educated his children in the system, paid his taxes and generally been a good citizen. His American dream was shattered when his daughter is defiled, beaten to a pulp and left for dead. Being a good citizen and believing he’d get justice in the courts, the man sits through the proceedings until conclusion.  When the system finally delivers its justice, he sits in disbelief as the boys are handed a suspended sentence and walk free!!!

At this point, as a reader, one is prompted to think of what they would do in the man’s shoes. The empathetic know exactly what they would do if they had the option of a godfather.  Again, one is further prompted to think about the different vigilante groups in our country and their origins and whether failures in our systems could be the reason why gangs like Mungiki, Sungu sungu get formed and gain myriad followers and sympathizers.

On my part, my mind starts racing through pages of my memory back to the days that I worked in the NGO sectors with groups in the informal settlements (Mathare, Korogocho, Kibera and Kiambiu) in Nairobi.  As a lawyer I would preach the gospel of law and the justice system. What I would always see whenever I would speak to the groups about the law or the justice system was hopelessness, in fact it was a collective sigh of “not again” “another clueless person who doesn’t realize that these laws she talks about are just but empty words which don’t apply to us…those with the money own justice”. One conversation had me seriously questioning the fairness of the system:

Participant: You say that I shouldn’t take money if my child is defiled by my neighbour?

Me: Yes you can go to the police and report, the person will be apprehended and taken to Court and your daughter will get justice.

Participant: What if the defiler has money to give to the police and when I go to report I end up being arrested myself?

Me: What? That can never happen…um…you can engage one of the NGOs like ours we’ll take up the case for you for free.

Participant: Then where will I live?!

Me: (Speechless)!

May be one needs a godfather after all. Find time and read the book. It’s Epic, for lack of a better word.

Books! Books! Books!

My name is Susan Walala formerly Susan Mukindia. The new name signifies a change in status and part of my exciting journey. I am a book enthusiast, a bookaholic and a true fanatic… it’s really as bad as it sounds because whereas most husbands hold their wives hands at clothing stores, mine holds mine at bookstores. As a young child I always knew that I wanted to be a lawyer. I suspect this was because my mother would always make me read the newspapers to her after work. I do not want to age myself but although news of political figures like the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Mwai Kibaki and Kenneth Matiba filled the newspapers of that age, the exploits of one lawyer, James Orengo, made me want to be a lawyer. I would read about him and the activist in me would be all fired up. Not forgetting the immutable pleasure of reading Wahome Mutahi’s column religiously. “Whispers” resonates to this very day.

The story I will tell is about my fascination with books and the phases of my life through books. Growing up in the leafy suburbs of Kawangware, my mother emphasised on two things. One was the importance of reading and the second the value of discipline. If you’re wondering which of the two took precedence, it was discipline. She would always say that one can have all the education in the world but without discipline they would amount to nothing. Needless to say, there were consequences for indiscipline that led to broken bones and such like things that, though nurturing, are painful to relive and may be taken out of context in this piece. 

We had a neighbour, a young student lawyer at the time who further emphasised the need for reading and cemented my love for knowledge. To this day I remember this Meru quote he told me “Kaba uthome kiorere ki mwiri”which roughly translates to “you’d rather read and let it rot while in the body.”

I attended Catholic Parochial Primary School. The choice of school was strategic on my mother’s part as it was near her place of work and that made sure that I never missed a day of school. I’d try and fake a morning headache as an excuse not to attend school and mum would be like “it’s even better for you to be at school so if anything happens to you I’ll be able to respond in good time”. I grew to love books and this is the one thing I can say for sure has been my saving grace. This phase of my life had some wonderful books like Kaka sungura na wenzake. If anyone here has this book I’d buy at whatever amount just so my son can have the same experience. We’d share some great books with my classmates including SweetValey High, R.L Stine, Adventures of Tintin, Asterix and Obelix, Archie, Betty and Veronica these were beautiful times.  We’d also attend an annual book fair at the Sarit Centre that showcased all the books a child my age could ever desire… I wonder if they still have book fairs. My younger sister tells me that as a child she only remembers me with my nose in a book, I still haven’t figured whether to feel sad over my lost childhood or be happy that I turned out to be a fairly well rounded sane woman.

High school at Buruburu Girls (Buru Mambao) was a hormone filled phase—seriously— half of us might not even remember the four years which we thought would never end. We’d take turns to read romance books which frankly I have no recollection who managed to sneak them to school. I blame the “sneakers” of those books for my poor grades in math — I mean who had the presence of mind to do equations when sculpted and exotic Mills and Boon and Judith McNaught characters enticingly lurked just a page away.  I remember one in particular—Paradise by Judith McNaught— that was so epic that I had to reread it last year to confirm whether it was just teenage hormones at play.....It  still had the same effect on me (I hope my husband is not reading this). As if reading these romance titles was not enough, we had a book club “mwitu” where our classmate would retell the stories in the most dramatic way possible. For Paradise, her rendition of Matt Ferrell’s marriage proposal to Meredith Bankroft left us all weak in the knees…… “if you’ll kiss me back I’ll give you six million dollars, if you’ll go to bed with me tonight..I’ll give you the world..but if you move in with me …I’ll give you Paradise on a gold platter”. If the people who gave Lupita an Oscar should had been there that first Oscar would have come home way much sooner.

I thank God we turned out okay especially you Sash madam editor who shall write my autobiography one day. It was not all romance in this phase, I still read some John Grisham, you know….in line with my dreams of being a lawyer. The set books we read also left a mark. In particular, I loved Africa kills her sun by Ken Saro Wiwa. The story oozed with the kind of effortless satire most writers struggle to emulate. I surprisingly loved Walenisi which I found quite mystical. I remember feeling the loss when the author Katama Mkangi passed away. I had hopes that he’d one day explain to me what that was about, my creative brain thought it was about aliens but really?!!! I also read Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source (I reread it this year) and the Achebe’s epic Things fall apart. To prepare me for womanhood my mother gave me Mariama Ba’s So long a letter which I absolutely love. The meaning and impact of the book only fully became revealed to me not when I read again in campus but last year as a wife and a mother and wow!!!

In campus I was “Oriental” so to speak. I looked East from the first time I read Robin Sharma’s The Monk who sold his Ferrari (I want to go to Tibet and meditate with the monks and may be then I shall be illuminated). Life then was a fine balance between parties and books. This balance is key because you really do not want to be the 40 year old at the back of the club instead of being hard at work building an empire. 

It was a good night in Eldoret, one of those nights that have the potential of turning into the nights to remember and my good friend Cathy  was excited about going out. The plot didn’t last long when she stumbled into boring me, the introvert. She asked me to get ready for the night out but I wasn’t budging, I was reading a book. This sparked a rant about how boring I was. Finally, she decided to see what book I was reading anyway, only to see Analects of Confucius ‘what the hell is that?!!!!!’ The look of horror is still imprinted on my mind. My obsession with the book stands to this day. As an idealist it was the perfect book for me. What with all the ideals we should all aspire to and words like benevolent, magnanimous, filial piety, the superior man vs the inferior man. Who doesn’t want to be the superior/noble man?  I still take this book out to remind me of my commitment to being a superior man whenever I feel wronged. These were the years that I read the Art of war, The book of five rings, The 48 laws of power, The art of seduction, The alchemist, Eleven minutes The pilgrimage, Memoirs of Ninon d’lenclos, How to win friends and influence people, The secret, Think and Grow rich, Chicken soup for the soul, Who moved my cheese, Act like a lady think like a man, Why men marry b***hes. Okay…you now know that I was going through a heartbreak while reading some of these). The books are good especially for such times, they make you strong and I highly recommend them for all women. 

At 25 I had a major quarter life crisis that brought me to my knees, anyone who knows me knows that I am very ambitious. My dreams and plans scare me at times. At 21 I had set a goal of owning a house and a car by the time I was 25 (I’m that kind of person, I set goals for every five years)…. never mind that I was a student and had no source of income. So here I was at 25 with a baby living at my mother in law’s house with no sense of direction whatsoever and I nearly had a breakdown. This was a phase where I required all the strength of a woman and so I read books like 50 shades of grey…..I did. The two words I would describe myself with are confident individualism. I believe in being authentic and true to myself against all odds and in being confident about it. I believe in Tracy Chapman music. I believe in strong women because throughout life I’ve been surrounded by them. I believe in the girl child and “as for my girls I will raise them to think they breathe fire.” I believe in taking the lead and taking the initiative to change that which we cannot accept and that is why this phase has been marked with books like Lean in by Sheryl Sandberg, Influence by Robert Cialdini, Big Short by Michael Lewis, Tribes by Seth Godin, The Jewish Phenomenon, The leader who had no title by Robin Sharma, How to stop worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie, Nice girls don’t get the corner office, The animal farm by George Orwell, The seven habits of highly effective people by Steve Covey, See you at the top by Zig Ziglar, Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, Manuscript found in Accra and Winner stands alone by Paulo Coelho, The Godfather by Mario Puzo, Rules for radicals by Saul Alinsky, The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini, To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee, Drive by Daniel H. Pink, The One minute Manager by Spencer Johnson, The Prophet by Khalil Gibran and the Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Finally, we all know the five love languages; I’ll state them for those who don’t: quality time, acts of service, physical touch, gifts and words of affirmation. My love language is books It’s a secret joke among my friends that if I love you I will always give you a book and the  greatest gift you can give to me is a book…I’ll always love it. My husband recently bought me a Kindle and loaded it with over 200 books. Guess how much I love him. My sister  willingly gave me her credit card details for me to buy books (my husband says a silent prayer for her every night!). Guess how much I love her. Recently and courtesy of my best friend I started trying out this extroversion thing, you know….the one you get to talk to people and actually enjoy it. I’ve talked to more people and I’ve noticed that most do not read as much….why? No time…How?!! It’s only a chapter a day. Anyway I decided I shall be reviewing the books I read on this page, at least, in the very least, to spark your interest in them and possibly lead to you enjoying them as much as I have or hope to have. You’re welcome to take this literary journey with me. 

A brain is a good thing to waste in books!!