Weep Not Child Read Free

freedom struggle, with its brutal reprisals against the colonial structure, is all the more forcefully felt in the novel in its contrast with the hero’s innocent and Christian piety. The innocence is the solvent in which the background violence is borne—the innocence of the tone alongside the tough directness of the writing.
    The Mau Mau situation has receded into the past, but
Weep Not, Child
carries on, independent of its historical context. Kenya has won its independence. African leaders have come and gone. But some things abide: The story of Njoroge lives.
    Time changes books in wonderful ways, if they are written with the ink of art. It is a mark of how accomplished Ngugi is as a writer that
Weep Not, Child
re-creates in the mind the atmosphere, the mood, the tension, and the feeling of the Mau Mau era. It has also created its own time and has the power to make us feel abiding realities: the hopes of the young, the impossibility of the world, the way in which politics affects our intimate lives, the necessity of resistance, and the meaning of family.

    If Ngugi had published nothing other than
Weep Not, Child
, he still would have earned a distinctive place in the African literary canon. He belongs to the tradition of the protest novelist—in fact, the Jomo Kenyatta who is the black Moses of the novel is the very same who in 1977 committed Ngugi to a year’s imprisonment and solitary confinement. As such,
Weep Not, Child
should be read alongside Richard Wright’s
Black Boy
, James Baldwin’s
Go Tell It on the Mountain
, Alan Paton’s
Cry, the Beloved Country
, John Steinbeck’s
The Grapes of Wrath
, and Maxim Gorky’s
My Childhood
.
    At the end of
Weep Not, Child
, Njoroge has set off into the night. He is in some danger to himself. His mother comes seeking him in the dark with a glowing brand of firewood. That’s what a work of art is—a glowing firewood in the darkness of our days, lighting the way, seeking us out. It’s an image that captures the dual nature of the novel, how it dwells in two worlds: the world of the real and the world of the revealed. The realities of Kenya are all in
Weep Not, Child
: the divisions in society, the root of betrayals, the problematic question of the land, the never-ending implications of colonial rule. The novel, as a work of art, continues to delight and engage our attention through its formal beauty, its powerful story, its unflinching gaze.
    BEN OKRI

for
    Jasbir Kalsi

Weep not, child
    Weep not, my darling
    With these kisses let me remove your tears,
    The ravening clouds shall not be long victorious,
    They shall not long possess the sky…
    WALT WHITMAN             
    ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT

Weep Not, Child

PART 1
THE WANING LIGHT

1
    Nyokabi called him. She was a small, black woman, with a bold but grave face. One could tell by her small eyes full of life and warmth that she had once been beautiful. But time and bad conditions do not favour beauty. All the same, Nyokabi had retained her full smile – a smile that lit up her dark face.
    ‘Would you like to go to school?’
    ‘O, Mother!’ Njoroge gasped. He half feared that the woman might withdraw her words.
    There was a little silence till she said, ‘We are poor. You know that.’
    ‘Yes, Mother.’ His heart pounded against his ribs slightly. His voice was shaky.
    ‘So you won’t be getting a midday meal like other children.’
    ‘I understand.’
    ‘You won’t bring shame to me by one day refusing to attend school?’
    O, Mother. I’ll never bring shame to you. Just let me get there, just let me.
The vision of his childhood again opened before him. For a time he contemplated the vision. He lived in it alone. It was just there, for himself; a bright future…Aloud he said, ‘I like school.’
    He said this quietly. His mother understood him.
    ‘All right. You’ll begin on Monday. As soon as your father gets his pay we’ll go to the shops. I’ll buy you a shirt and a pair of