A SONG OF MANY VOICES Review

GENRE: SHORT STORY
TITLE: A SONG OF MANY VOICES
WRITER: MAURICE KITWAA, KENYA
REVIEWER: HALIEO MOTANYANE, LESOTHO

The power of a good story resides in its ability to swallow the reader in its world; a show-not-tell technique. All throughout A Song of Many Voices, I walked, saw and felt everything that the persona went through.

In this story, Maurice Kitwaa narrates the harshness, brutality and criminal actions that policemen do to Kenyan citizens. As a plot of the story, Maurice walked us into the feeling that many people go through in the hands of the police; being arrested without cause and charged without proof. A lot goes through in mind about the governmental system in Kenya while reading the story. One wonders, what do law stand for, when law enforcement officers deny it?

However, this story is not about police brutality. It is rather about a revolution to better Kenya from its dictators. In the cell, the persona sees the freedom fighters of Kenya, enchanting and singing revolutionary songs. The new characters that are not entirely there moved the story forward, giving in the ultimate message of the story. Just maybe, the story might have been about the unseen revolutionaries using the persona to tell Kenyans to stand up for themselves. Or rather it might just be vice versa, the persona used revolutionaries as a motivation to stand up and fight against the brutal forces against police.

A message that I am taking home from this story is within the circle of the community workers that the community directly suffers. With this in mind, it is also within the community individuals to stop crimes.