Red Strangers is the story of a Kikuyu village set at the time when the first European colonisers arrived in Kenya, and the changes that came with colonialism. In beautiful, exquisite prose Elspeth Huxley describes the ways of the Kikuyu, the pastures where young boys are herding the goats of their fathers, the sacred fig-trees whose roots grow down from heaven instead of up from earth, and the majestic peak of Kerinyagga (Mount Kenya).High and remote, the peak floated in the clean air above them, guarded from the impudent feet of men by many spirits. Above, on the far white crest where no man could venture, was the seat of God. There he dwelt, sending rain or withholding it according to his pleasure. Sometimes, when he prepared to go on a journey, men could hear him cracking his joints with a noise of thunder; at such times they would not dare to look up into the sky, lest they should glimpse his majesty and perish.The consideration that within a few years none will survive of those who remember the way of life that existed before the white man came was what led her to make the experiment of this book, wrote Huxley in her foreword. I'm so glad she did. This is a beautiful, beautiful book that deserves its place next to Karen Blixen's Out of Africa.
One of the best books for getting inside a different culture. We see the world from the viewpoint of early 20th century Kikuyu people and how their world rapidly changes due to the arrival of English settlers. The charcters are well developed and for the most part sympathetic. Kikuyu culture is contrasted favorably with that of the settlers. It is hard to believe that the book dates from 1939 less than 50 years after the colonisation of Kenya began.(I read the original edition). Huxley also wrote the wonderful "Flame Trees of Thika" about growing up in Kenya.
What do You think about Red Strangers (2000)?
I loved the fiction look into pre-colonial Kikuyu life. I especially loved the point of view from which the story is told- that of the Kikuyu, evident in the title of the book: Red Strangers. As opposed to the regular depictions of how strange pre-colonial Africa was to the European, Huxley shows just how strange, and utterly incomprehensible (dare I say, senseless), the Europeans and their ways were. It made me reconsider a lot of what today is taken for granted and as matter of fact in the way we run our worlds, especially the inherited colonial ways in which we run the worlds of African nations. A passage I liked, that shows the idiocy of a prison system in dealing with wrongs, from pg 202: "The affair of the young man's death is between Karue and my father Waseru. What has the stranger to do with it?" "That is stranger's law. Matu killed, he evil man. Therefore he stays with stranger." "Then what does Karue receive in compensation for his son, who is dead?" "He not receive anything." "Then the stranger gets something for Karue's loss, and Karue's clan gets nothing at all."
—Wangui
