Africa

The sixteenth book I read this year was Weep Not, Child by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. I don't expect you to have heard of it, and I have to admit I found it in the library by accident. It is partly related to the previous book I read, The English Patient, in the sense that it is set in Africa, and reflects upon the participation of Africans in WWII.
I'm sorry, it's a bit hard to concentrate because I've found a programme on BBC where Ondaatje is talking about TEP, and it's hard to listen to that and write this post simultaneously. (As soon as I had written it, the programme ended.)

Ngugi was born in Limuru, Kenya, in 1938. He was educated at Makerere University, Uganda and at the University of Leeds. I was a bit confused by the book because inside it says that Weep Not, Child was his first novel, while on the blurb (I've just learned this word from Árpi) it says his second. I also found that he started writing in English, then switched to Gikuyu, his native language.
The book, first published in 1964, is about Njoroge, a boy and his family. His father, Ngotho, has two wives, Njeri and Nyokabi, and altogether five sons, I think. The story is set in a Kenyan village, from the end of WWII into the 1950s or 1960s, I think. Mwangi, Njoroge's only full brother died in WWII. Boro, the eldest son, who also fought in the war, came home as a different man, worn by losses. He becomes the leader of a movement fighting against whites, called Mau Mau. Kamau is a carpenter apprentice. And finally we have Kori, who I don't remember much except that he was strongly influenced by Boro. Ngotho, the father, works for Mr. Howlands, a white settler, on the very same land that previously belonged to his ancestors. Boro constantly criticizes his father for this, and Ngotho gradually loses his self-esteem and position as the leader of the family. Unfortunately, the names were a bit hard to follow initially, but I got used to them.
The main protagonist is Njoroge, the youngest son, the only one who goes to school. It is believed by the members of the family that their future and the future of the country lies in education; therefore, the older sons do their best to support Njoroge's education, who in turn does his best at school. His best friend is Mwihaki, the daughter of a wealthy black man, called Jacobo. As the story unfolds, their families become enemies, but the two of them reserve their strong bond throughout.
The story is seen through the eyes of Njoroge, although it is told in third person singular. The boy reserves his naiveté almost to the end, but the reader knows that the events described are quite serious and cruel. This creates a tension, and we know that at some point Njoroge will have to face the situation, but at the same time we keep hoping that he can fulfil his dreams, and change the situation thanks to his education.
Although the book focuses on a single family, on a greater scale it tells the story of a whole continent, moreover, the story of colonies all over the world. It is a sad description of what the white man, particularly the Englishman (and later the American) does to the world, conquering and robbing everywhere possible.
A similar question came up in The English Patient as well. There was an Indian sapper working in Italy, defusing bombs. When he heard of the atomic bomb dropped on Japan he says that bomb would never have been dropped on white people. Another thing that came to my mind after watching Sunshine was how Churchill said that against Hitler he would join forces even with the Satan, referring to the alliance with Stalin (I don't know the exact quotation). And as we were discussing the film, my boyfriend said that Westerners just can't understand what happened here in Eastern Europe, under the Soviet occupation and socialist regime. And I wonder if we, having born in the 1980s, can understand it.
Back to Ngugi's book, another important issue in it was the relationship of minorities (or rather oppressed ethnicities) to one another. In Njoroge's village there were Indians as well, who despised Africans and had a better socioeconomic status, while in turn Africans hated them just as much as they hated the white man. And I can't understand how people can live with it. I understand the why, that one always needs someone worse off to feel confident about himself, yet it remains incomprehensible to me. (I don't know the exact details of this African-Indian relationship, and I think Gandhi spoke up against apartheid in Africa.)
The book was a short one, and felt somehow simple to me, so I have ambiguous feelings towards it. There were two eye-catching captions on the cover: "Ngugi's masterpiece" and "one of the best known novels in Africa." The sad thing is that the situation in Africa remains unsettled, and I wonder how many of its inhabitants can actually read, not to mention read books.