Ngugi wa Thiong'o's essay collection Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of

Language in African Literature was left in a friend's apartment with the instruction to "free
my mind". This reminded the 1999 blockbuster science fiction movie The Matrix, where
humans are imprisoned in a picture-perfect virtual world. Ngugi's body of work, from his
1965 novel The River Between to his 2012 memoir In the House of the Interpreter, is the red
pill, delivering readers from a simplistic understanding of colonialism to a complicated
imagining of Africa before, during, and after colonialism. His imperialism is an infectious
mindset that corrupts self-perceptions and socio-historical narratives, creating despair,
despondency, and a collective death wish. His approach to writing is to let ideas emerge from
concrete reality, and his novel The River Between is one of the first pieces of African fiction
to address the complex thoughts and feelings of Africans about living under colonialism.

The River Between is a dystopian bildungsroman set in a fictional historical context

around the time of the push by the British colonial religious infrastructure to eradicate female
circumcision. It is a dystopian bildungsroman set in a fictional historical context around the
time of the push by the British colonial religious infrastructure to eradicate female
circumcision and explores the tension surrounding the Gikuyu community as it confronts
change. It places conflict at the center of his narrative, not at the expense of the characters
who must live through it. James Ngugi developed a love of the English literary canon and
Christian religious traditions while living through pre-independence upheavals. He ventured
to show his manuscript of The River Between to Hugh Dinwiddy, a British faculty member at
Makerere, who remembered that Ngugi had started writing a novel and asked him to come in.
Ngugi's narrative places conflict at the center of his narrative, not at the expense of the
characters who must live through it.

The River Between is a story about two ridges, Kameno and Makuyu, and their
competing philosophies. It builds tension in its imagery of opposition and suggests that this
tension predates colonialism. Waiyaki, a typical hero, is introduced as a typical hero with the
right curiosity and bloodline. He gains insight into his purpose and the turmoil it will bring
through his father, Chege, a weary prophet, and elder statesman from the Kameno ridge. The
novel is about the turmoil resulting from a 1929 decree by the Church of Scotland Mission
prohibiting circumcised individuals from attending mission schools.

Reverend Livingstone, the sole white character given a voice, was horrified by the
songs and actions he saw on the eve of circumcision. A wide swath of the community stands
in opposition to Livingstone's thinking and finds a voice in the prophet Chege, who reflects
that circumcision was the central rite in the Gikuyu way of life. Jomo Kenyatta's Facing
Mount Kenya argues that the abolition

Ngugi's novel is a defense of female genital mutilation, which is seen as a debate

about female equality and autonomy. Muthoni offers her body as a locus of compromise for
two competing worldviews, but the result is unfavorable. Waiyaki is a powerful symbol for
the community and a fixture in local politics. He pursues education as a means of uniting
Kameno and Makuyu, encouraged by his father and his time in missionary educational
institutions. He finds himself in constant conflict with Kabonyi, who represents the older
generation without strong convictions or belief in the primacy of Gikuyu culture. He resigns
from the Kiama to pursue the expansion of schools, his ultimate fate owing to this dogged
push for a resolution to a conflict that has deeper roots than he chooses to grasp.

Ngugi's Waiyaki is the first novel to explore the question of how colonialism can heal
cultural rifts. It takes readers on a journey out of the colonial matrix and into the real world,
showing life reclaimed from the simplifying template of colonialism.