The River Between | Ngugi wa Thiong'o | William Heinemann

At 152 A5-sized pages, The River Between is not a thick book to read, yet it becomes heavy and the heaviness does not go away for several days after reading.

Written by Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong'o and first published in 1965 by William Heinemann Ltd, The River Between provides a compelling narrative of how the white men's faith brought to the African continent caused much grief to the natives.  I'm sure, as with many other civilizations, there are bound to be tribes of different faiths with different norms, yet such differences might never have reached the yawning gaps that the arrival of Christianity brought to many lands.  

Very often, as with a long long time, the European narrative (and in the modern times, the American narrative) has been the dominant narrative.  The Chinese are now straining to have their narrative heard, with their new found economic might.  The African narrative, somehow, remains confined to certain parts of the world (well at least there aren't many news articles about what is happening in the African in the local broadsheet), and I do so appreciate that Heinemann has an African Writers Series.  

And certainly I do now appreciate that the teachers forced some books from the African Writers Series on us during English class, in perhaps an attempt to wean us off from the European and American narratives that we had probably accepted as the gospel truth, and widen our perspective on the negative aspects of the Europeans spreading their faith, economic and military might across all corners of the globe when they could do so then.  I never might, on my own initiative, pick up a book written by an African writer.  There didn't seem to be a need, when there are so many entertaining and familiar writers to choose to read from.

There are not many characters in The River Between, with Waiyaki as a focal point tasked by his father to be a saviour to his people.  Waiyaki focuses on the education of the children (the next generation) that he did not realise that the current generation has grievances.  Eventually, Waiyaki is handed to "the Kiama, who would judge them and decide what to do."  Tellingly, the villagers had removed the burden of judging for themselves if Waiyaki was indeed guilty of what he was accused.   And it was left to the reader to forever be curious on what decisions the Kiama took.