Deconstruction of Literary History in Margaret Ogola's The River and the Source

Abstract

This essay sought to have a dialogue on the role of Margaret Ogola’s renowned work The River and the Source in retelling the country’s history spanning from precolonial times to independent Kenya through the lives of her female protagonists and their loved ones. The novel is semi-autobiographical because the author was inspired by her mother who told her about the lives of her grandmother and great grandmother. The study has dug deeper into Ogola’s contribution to literary history by engaging with her novel guided by deconstruction and new historicism literary theories. This study discusses how her work borrows from history, expounds on it and fills in the gaps in selective history while giving meaning into her narrations from a reader’s perspective. The specific objectives of the study were to celebrate the author’s life and contribution to literature in Kenya and to demonstrate how the novel creates value in the reader. The novel won the 1995 commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book, Africa Region.