Sheng Novel Raises Awareness on Thorny Socio-Economic Issues in Kenya

Sheng Novel Raises Awareness on Thorny Socio-Economic Issues in Kenya

By Iminza Keboge
Published November 10, 2022

Sheng Novel Raises Awareness on Thorny Socio-Economic Issues in Kenya What would you do if you were a poor man’s son and the teenage daughter of the family that employs your father as a domestic servant accused you of making her pregnant?

This isn’t the story line of Across the Bridge by Mwangi Gicheru but Without Kiinua Mgongo by David Maillu.

Written in the Nairobi Sheng of the 1980s, the 76-page pocket-size novel revolves around Nzuki, the son of a domestic servant called Mwangangi and Katherine, the daughter of Mbuta in whose home Mwangangi works in Nairobi.

Katherine frames Nzuki, an 18-year-old who has just sat Advanced Level examinations and is awaiting university admission, in a desperate attempt to cover up her shame for he5r indiscretion with a person she shouldn’t have been with in the first place.

What would you do if you were a poor man's son and the teenage daughter of the family that employs your father as a domestic servant accused you of making her pregnant? Mbuta hits back with a vengeance. In the end the villain and the victim find themselves sandwiched in a corner from which they must learn to not just survive but thrive. This seems to echo the modern proverb that God works in mysterious ways, a saying derived from the poem, Light Shining out of Darkness, by William Cowper from England that is a popular Christian hymn.

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill;
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Mbuta hits back with a vengeance. In the end the villain and the victim find themselves sandwiched in a corner from which they must learn to not just survive but thrive. Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev’ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.

Without Kiinua Mgongo by David Maillu Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.