SOURCE: Hayward, Helen. “A New Dispossession.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5163 (15 March 2002): 25.

In the following review, Hayward contends that The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, and Petals of Blood are important works for understanding postcolonial African writing, notable for their political nature as well as their emphasis on subtleties within historical events.

In this trio of roughly chronological novels [The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, and Petals of Blood,], Ngugi wa Thiong'o portrays the disruption of Kikuyu society as a result of the invasive pressure of colonialism; he depicts the struggle against colonial rule that culminated in Kenya's acquisition of independence in 1963, and traces the betrayal, by a corrupt postcolonial state, of the hopes which had been invested in self-government.

The River Between, which was first published in 1965, is set at the time of the arrival of European missionaries. It recreates the reverences and order of Kikuyu...