The new short story anthology Nairobi Noir edited by renowned journalist and fiction writer Peter Kimani has a lot to be admired by fiction lovers.
For literary enthusiasts keen on detail, the anthology is a pendulum swinging between a rich variety of distinctively fascinating styles of narration to robust themes that speak true to the experiences of modern-day Nairobi city and other urban spaces throughout the world.
Among the inevitable impressions in the anthology to be released to a waiting market on February 4 include two short stories; one by world’s best-known writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o and another by her daughter Wanjiku wa Ngugi.
On one hand, it is a pride of a father who has nurtured his four children to follow his footsteps, producing literary masterpieces that reckon them as his equals. On the other, it is a consolation for the writer who has suffered false hope of winning the coveted Nobel Literature Prize, going by his perennial nomination for the award.
Well, Ngugi’s gods have been relatively kind though considering that last December, he won two prizes - the 2018 Premi’s prize for defending African languages and the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize on November.
Sharing a platform with one of his children is not entirely new for Ngugi. Last year in February, he shared a platform dubbed ‘The duel of the Ridges talk’ at St Paul’s University in Limuru with his 48-year-old son Mukoma wa Ngugi, who has also risen to equal his 82-year-old father as a professor of English in a US university.
Nurturing spirit
It was at the forum that Ngugi revealed that all the writers in his family exchange manuscripts before they are sent for publishing, a clear indication of the nurturing spirit hovering in their set up.
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Mukoma has made his name through novels that include Nairobi Heat, Mrs Shaw and Black Star Nairobi while his father has Weep not, Child, The River Between, A grain of Wheat and Matigari among many others.
It is this latest Akashic Noir Series that Ngugi and his daughter Wanjiku serve their charming tales to readers. Wanjiku comes first with her story For Our Mothers based on the city’s Pangani neighbourhood. Her father’s story comes in the later pages with an alliteration-styled title story The Hermit in the Helmet set in Kawangware.
As the noir genre dictates, the anthology restricts writers to zero in on ‘dark’ themes depicting an unpleasant world through cynical characters. The two authors have efficiently stuck to the demands.
Apparently, there are striking similarities in the works that illustrate the mentor-mentee influence. Ngugi satirises Christian religion showing how it undermined African liberalism. In his typical sense, Ngugi blames the whites for the evils in the African soil, showing how their sympathisers suffered ridicule trying to imitate the imperialists. Ngugi tells us about Kanage, a teacher who borrows a helmet from a white man without knowing he was receiving a curse to himself. The helmet gets stuck on his head reducing him to a farce.
For Wanjiku, the teacher character also surfaces and in the same vein, she is also the protagonist. It is a story of Samina, a teacher troubled by dreams. The character had nightmares during childhood but resurfaced at 21 when she is a teacher. The dreams are caused by her effortless struggle to fight off poverty that is deeply ingrained in the family.
Besides the striking similarity in the characters, there is also the concept of religion which has found its way into both stories. While Ngugi directly trivialises Christianity, his daughter shows how religion is being used by criminals in the story to disguise themselves.
Ngugi also sticks to his Fanonical Marxism theory where he creates an altercation between two cultures. In this case, the whites’ culture is seeking dominance over the African traditions a clear sign of competition as stipulated in the Marxist tenets.
Wanjiku also has Marxist ingredients in her work, showing the class difference of the have and have nots.
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Outstanding differences
While Samina lives in a poor family, their neighbours are living in opulence. However, Wanjiku adds Freudian psychoanalysis by bringing in dream motifs in her story.
But there are also outstanding differences between the two authors: while Ngugi is stuck in the colonial past, his daughter has shifted to the post-independence era. Ngugi also uses magical realism while her daughter seems influenced by postcolonial theories. Ngugi also centres the play of power on the male gender while his daughter takes a feminist perspective capturing women struggling to overcome economic and social challenges.
With her new short story, Wanjiku adds to her other works, including the novel The Fall of Saints and several short stories and essays.
