Ngugi wa Thiong'o has been acclaimed as East Africa's foremost novelist. His criticism of colonial rule, Christianity and post colonial abuses earned him as much admiration from the public as well as trouble from Kenya's authorities. Ngugi's literary targets have included governmental corruption, socioeconomic exploitation, and religious hypocrisy. A committed writer makes a ruthless scrutiny of the social evils, which are repugnant to him and to his people. Clifford Odets and Auden in the U.S., Mulk Raj Anand and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya in India , Arnold Wesker in England, Ngugi Thiong’o in Kenya are some of the creative artists who never hesitated to invite others to listen to them and subjected their works to the scrutiny of their people. Their art is committed to the people, to revolution and transformation. It contributes to revolutionary change and it preserves everything that is good for humanity. Thus, by recording the ills in society, it remains on the side of the oppressed.

Ngugi Thiong’o, when he came to recreate the history of his people through fiction, selected for his first two novels- Weep Not ,Child (1964) and The River Between (1965)- the events relating to the introduction of western education as well as Christianity. The River Between is Ngugi’s first attempt at novel writing, but it was published after Weep Not, Child. In fact, it contains the period of Kenyan history prior to that of Weep Not, Child.

In The River Between (1965), Ngugi wa Thiong'o uses a distinction in setting between two mountain ridges as an organizing conceit that dramatizes the antagonism between two competing native constituencies and their seemingly irreconcilable belief structures. Because the setting (presumably the late 1940's or early