Arguably the better of the two novels I have read by the author, so far, and also the more realised and heavier with symbolism (which will warrant not a second, but a third, perhaps a fourth, endless, rereads); the first reaction I had upon reaching the climax of the story was how ineffective my very specific upbringing during my teen-age years, as a student in Tanzania, proves in introducing us to the literature of the continent. And not solely the literature of the continent, but its most relevant in a native African tongue; surely we all know the Achebes, the Ngozi Adichies, the Yabouzas, amongst many more greats, who have (like their Latin American counterparts) made the language of their colonisers theirs, and theirs to exploit, bend to their will, and express the open wounds left behind by Empire; but aside from wa Thiong'o's achievement, the median reader will struggle with naming a single other author from the mother continent who doesn't write in English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, etc.
The journeys Karega, Munira, Wanja and Abdulla go through, with the colourful and lively Ilmorog village (then city, then massive urban sprawl à la Nairobi), each relate an aspect of Kenyan society through the back years of the colony as well as the dawn of a proud new nation after a terrible guerrilla war which has left scars on every soul of the land, as well as irreparably damaged and strained social standards, familial and friendly relations, who could once have been your comrade in revolution and strike was now your opressor, and your former opressors now were nowhere to be found, completely unaccounted for. These, the pains of Kenya, reflect not only this one single land, but the very tangible lines of suffering on the entirety of Africa, not for nothing has wa Thiong'o found incredible success throughout his whole career amongst the lucky few of his fellow Africans to have read him, whom through his masterful translation of his own works have felt a pain reflected on their own nations carved out of the continent through strife and war. Ilmorog village, very much like Macondo representing Colombia and Latin America in García Márquez' Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), reflects not only the average Kenyan villaged rebuilt and redesigned for the white touring eye, but the soul of the entire continent, ravaged, pillaged, razed, violated, exploited, for the interests of the white European metropolis. Abdulla in particular, hit me the hardest, as one of the remaining heirs of the struggle for freedom, with many of his ideals reflected in the younger eyes of Karega and Munira, but is as well the saddest and most poignant reflection of those who in the past struggled for a better tomorrow: lost nigh on their lives and well-being

, for a nation that has forced them into the dirt and wretch of the modern capitalist Kenya-Africa

.
This book is hard for me to review, to be objective and at the same time subjective, about a topic I feel so particularly affected by, the exploitation of the Global South and the ever-growing presence of destruction capitalism, but if I could, perchance, leave a single sentence to summarise this book for a possible reader, it'd be this: our situation is forever bleak, for those purportedly standing by our side could always betray us, but we struggle onwards, not for the prize we ourselves can and must attain, but so that those after us need not struggle again for them.