StoryElimu

Title: Den of Inequities Author: Kinyanjui Kombani Publisher: Sasa Sema (Imprint of Longhorn) Year: 2013 Reviewer: Kitui Wakape As a novel targeting the  mature general public and to some extent university students most prone to insecurity, Kombani's Den of Inquities might as well be an unofficial indictment to the National Police Service on extra judicial killings that have bedevilled our police force for ages. Going by the reports of police killing innocent civilians on the premise of maintaining law and order, reading Kombani's work will click on the reader's subconscious the numerous TV reports on police killings. It would be an understatement to say that his story sounds and reads like the truth inside of fiction. Coming hot in the heels of his bestselling novel The Last Villains of Molo on post election violence, Kombani's writing places him as an authority figure on matters  criminal justice system in Kenya. The author uses the Aliston Report on extra

Writer tackles incest, betrayal and murder in outstanding novella Title: Tracking The Scent of My Mother Author: Muthoni Garland Publisher: StoryMoja Year: 2007 Reviewer: Kitui Wakape If you've ever had doubts on whether Kenya has great novelists or not, then you may have to consider Muthoni Garland's novella Tracking The Scent of My Mother. This book was a shortlist of the prestigious Caine Prize in 2006 as a manuscript and was completed in Naivasha during a Caine Prize African Writers' Workshop. Set in the rural Mukuruweini and Ithanga, Garland's story looks at the brutalised life of Scholastica who was born into a polygamous household with her senior mother having five daughters and her mother having two. She develops a certain bond with her mother that she guards jealously as they work the fields and do house chores together. It is this jealousy that leads her in killing her 14-year-old half sister at a rickety bridge over river Ragati. She was just nine

 A witty tale on romance, immorality and the wages of crime Title: The Minister's Daughter Author: Mwangi Ruheni Publisher: East African Educational Publishers (Spear Books) Year:1975( Reprinted nineteen times ) Reviewer: Kitui Wakape Going by recent media reports where high school teens have been caught red handed; high on alcohol and drugs while engaging in ungodly acts, one may wonder why today's teens are so obsessed with misbehaviour, especially during holidays. But a more poignant question would be: where do parents go wrong? In this novel written four decades ago, Ruheni seems to provide answers albeit with a humorous touch. It rings with truth, reflecting the current Kenyan society way of life. The author successfully manages to weave a witty narrative that brings to the fore issues of teenage love and pregnancy, materialism, religious hypocrisy and moral decay. Ruheni does this through Jane Njeri, a timid girl raised by staunch christian parents. Her father