The critique of Gikuyu religion and culture in S.N.Ngubiah's a curse from God

Abstract

The relationship between missionary Christianity and traditional African cultures was a prominent theme in post-colonial literature during and for many years after the era
of decolonisation. In contrast to the nostalgic defensiveness of many Kenyan and other
post-colonial African writers, perhaps most notably Ngugi wa Thiong'o, the Gikuyu
novelist S.N. Ngubiah found not salvation but a burden in certain aspects of his precolonialist
indigenous culture. In his novel A curse from God (1970) Ngubiah challenges
obliquely but unmistakably the long-accepted position of his fellow Gikuyu (and
first national leader of independent Kenya) Jomo Kenyatta, particularly as argued in
Facing Mount Kenya, that a return to tribal folkways was a precondition to economic
and social upliftment. This clash between a traditionalist and a modernist exemplifies
the larger predicament facing African societies as they undergo rapid religio-cultural
transformation.

Acta Theologica Vol. 1 2007: pp. 46-58