We whine about atrocities, criticise those who help us

Literature knocks you breathless with freshness. New social contexts open up fresh vistas of interpretation, defying both time and space. Hence in an increasingly battered society, you are reminded of a nameless character in Meja Mwangi’s story titled The Cockroach Dance. The Bathroom Man is a diffident and battered individual in Mwangi’s 1979 publication.

His stunningly wretched dislocation gives him a disturbingly memorable presence in Mwangi’s town narratives. Indeed, sheer eminence of wretchedness places The Cockroach Dance in a distinct place among Mwangi’s other city narratives, like Going Down River Road, Kill Me Quick and The Bush Trackers. Or, perhaps, it is just the shaming familiarity of the inmates of Daca House where this man lives. You see it everywhere all the time, making The Bathroom Man a metaphor for a massive national population under rape from its leadership? Are we just Bathroom People who live at the mercy of our national landlords?