My Roots

My Roots is a modernist novel that shows the limitations of modernist philosophy and the flipside of culture mix. This novel is set in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi (in Africa) and Oxford, U.K, & Washington D.C, Boston, Maryland, New Jersey in U.S.A (in the West) at the onset of independence in Africa. Its on post-colonial migration in which the characters struggle to negotiate their relevance in the mosaic of cultures assailing Africa during colonialism. Otenyo, the star of the story who is expected to inherit his father as an African chief foregoes his inheritance when he takes up a government job in the newly independent Kenya. New values infiltrate their society. The death of his American-born wife and academic failure of his family is the hollowness of his dream. His belated attempt to reconnect with his childhood lover/flame whom he had abandoned in Kenya for three decades ends up in utter fiasco. Otenyo and his siblings fail because of their pursuit of high-culture, and alienation from their culture/motherland, thus, the need for adopting African spiritual and metaphysical models of existence.