Dreams in a time of war

Thiongʼo is a Kenyan writer, and in this book he recounts his youth in 1950s Kenya, torn apart by ruthless British repression.
It is not a political or historical text, although references to figures and events in the history of the African nation are numerous.

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And indeed, amid dramatic events and social upheavals, the young Thiongʼo pursues a stubborn desire for schooling and education, leading him from the seemingly sealed fate of a peasant to that of a writer.
This is the profound core of the book: it is possible to keep dreams alive even in times of war.
Thiongʼo was born into a typical Kikuyu family.
His father is a small landowner with four wives and many children.
The portrayal of this community, with its multitude of brothers and sisters, is the finest part of the book.
The author offers a vivid, affectionate representation, rich in memory and steeped in nostalgia.
It is a happy childhood anchored by a cornerstone, his mother, who wishes for her son to “always seek the best, whatever the difficulties and obstacles.”
And it is by listening to peasant tales and songs that the child “begins to hear the music in words,” the magic of choice, arrangement, cadence—everything that makes a story so beautiful and endures so long in memory.
Thiongʼo falls in love with words, both written and spoken, and from that moment on, his destiny is sealed.
Family upheavals and national events leave a deep mark on the boy’s adolescence: his mother is repudiated by his father, the extended family disintegrates, and British repression brings death, injustice, and devastation.
The educational path itself is fraught with obstacles, as schools must often shut down or conform to British dictates, which oppose the cultural advancement of the local population.
In spite of everything, the boy masters English, even having to learn it from an absurd textbook describing two Oxford boys discovering London.
He knows everything about the British capital and little to nothing about his own country! He devours the great classics of English and world literature, memorizes Treasure Island, and it is precisely thanks to this passion for Stevenson’s great novel that he brilliantly passes the entrance exam for secondary school.
He is admitted to one of the finest educational institutions in Kenya.
The entire community shares in the boy’s triumph, contributing collectively to pay his tuition and provide the young Thiongʼo with the necessary school kit.
Indeed, everyone knows full well that

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The narrative unfolds unevenly.
The portrayal of childhood, of the large paternal family, as well as several observations on the school environment, are lively and engaging.
The author holds them vividly in his memory and relishes returning to them.
When he shifts to recounting the events of the nation—the independence struggle, the British repression—even when narrating dramatic episodes in which he was personally involved, the prose turns cold, resembling a historian’s report, a bystander’s chronicle.
The narrative grows ponderous, loses its vitality, and leaves the reader bewildered by events and figures far removed from their familiarity.
Nor, on the other hand, does a clear picture emerge of the events leading to independence, for everything remains fragmented, ill-defined, as though the author himself were incapable of reconstructing his country’s history.
The English is textbook-like, elegant and precise, yet—at least on the surface—concedes nothing, in either vocabulary or syntactic construction, to the author’s native tongue.
And this, too, contributes to an overarching impression of sterility and abstraction.

Why read it? The first part of the book offers a highly interesting and intriguing glimpse into Kikuyu society.