The River & The Source
SynopsisPlot
The novel traces the lives of three generations of women. Beginning with the story of AKOKO set in her rich traditional Luo surroundings through to the children of Awiti who live and die in the full swell of the 20th century. This is an epic story spanning cultures; filled with laughter and tears. A book that demands to be read at a sitting!
Story
About this book
The River and The Source by Margaret A. Ogola follows three generations of women in Kenya, beginning with Akoko, who lives within the customs and rhythms of traditional Luo society. From Akoko's world, the story moves forward through her descendants, tracing the changes each generation encounters as colonialism, Christianity, education, and urban life reshape the landscape around them. The novel reaches into the late twentieth century, where Akoko's grandchildren and great-grandchildren face pressures and choices that would have been unrecognizable in her time.
Ogola sets the opening sections among the Luo people of western Kenya, near Lake Victoria. The cultural details of that setting, including marriage customs, leadership structures, and community obligations, form the foundation from which later upheavals are measured. As the generations advance, the women in the family respond to shifting expectations about gender, faith, and personal ambition in ways shaped by both inherited values and new circumstances.
The book won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1995 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in the Africa region. Margaret Ogola was a Kenyan physician and novelist who lived and worked in Nairobi.
