
a book
Red Strangers
Elspeth Huxley · 2006 · 432 pages
Growing up in Kenya in the early twentieth century, the brothers Matu and Muthegi are raised according to customs that, they are told, have existed since the beginning of the world. But when the �red� strangers come, sunburned Europeans who seek to colonize their homeland, the lives of the two Kikuyu tribesmen begin to change in dramatic new ways. Soon, their people are overwhelmed by unknown diseases that traditional magic seems powerless to control. And as the strangers move across the land, the tribe rapidly finds itself forced to obey foreign laws that seem at best bizarre, and that at worst entirely contradict the Kikuyu�s own ancient ways, rituals and beliefs.
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Richard Dawkins
“This epic saga sweeping through four generations of life among Kenya’s Kikuyu tribe is a novel of Steinbeckian stature neglected by literary connoisseurs. Huxley leads us into the Kikuyu world so that, when the British arrive, they seem as alien as invading Martians. Her descriptive powers rival Steinbeck’s, but her imagery is drawn from the Kikuyu mind. A felled tree ‘tottered like a drunken elder.'”↗