By IPS Correspondents
NAIROBI, May 20 2003 (IPS)

Bespectacled 73-year old Rebeka Njau may have shrunk with age, her slow, cautious steps evidence of her body’s frailty, but she still burns with more passion and vigour than most women half her age.

"I want people to be free. I want children to be free. I want them to express themselves. That’s what is in my book – freedom. Be free to express yourself!" she proclaims.

Njau launched her second novel, ‘The Sacred Seed’, in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, last week.

"I want women to read (‘The Sacred Seed’) and liberate themselves. You should have your own identity. Be what you want to be. Be yourself. Don’t be like anybody else," she exhorts.

"Women should not be afraid because it is they who make men treat them the way they do. They blame men. I also blame men in a way but a woman has a big part to play to liberate herself.

"If women are different and they want to assert themselves and say, ‘This is what I believe in’, if the man is reasonable, he will listen," she insists.

It is 28 years since Njau released her first highly-acclaimed novel, ‘Ripples in the Pool’, which won the East African Writing Committee Prize. The pool in the book symbolises the tragedy that befalls several elite urbanites – a thief, a prostitute, a hospital assistant – who return to their village hoping to change it.

‘The Sacred Seed’ is also a powerful social commentary, using nature to draw parallels with our own contemporary problems.

The heroine, Tesa, is a talented music teacher who is raped by a corrupt president, Dixon Chinusi. She leaves the city to seek help from a traditional woman with special powers.

The woman gives her a gourd seed and asks her to plant it as a symbol of wisdom, hope and courage. From the seed, an Eden-like grove blossoms with "springs of cool water. sparrows hopping from branch to branch. the sweet fragrance of sweet-smelling flowers".

It becomes a sanctuary where men and women go to get spiritual nourishment and healing.

"I welcome ‘The Sacred Seed’ because of the boldness with which Rebeka attempts to tackle sensitive issues close to my heart, like gender violence, manifested in rape," says Njau’s childhood friend and pioneering educationalist Eddah Gachukia.

Njau also takes a swipe at other contemporary controversies, such as corrupt religious leaders who build a church on land from which people have been forcibly evicted and give the front row seats to their political allies.

"African writing should be serious and inspiring," says Njau, a former English and History teacher. "It must be functional and not just literature for art’s sake. Our literature must speak about our daily lives, social and economic ills."

Njau has always been motivated to write about people who are unjustly treated – often women.

Her play, ‘The Scar’, printed in 1960, was inspired by a story she heard of a father who was dividing up his assets among his children on his death bed. The man insisted on giving his daughter, who had had a baby outside marriage, a share of his inheritance.

"Her brothers felt bad. They said, ‘It is unfair. This woman should be married to the man that gave her the baby,’" Njau recalls.

"When the father died they started quarrelling among themselves," she continues. "The mother was so upset that she committed suicide.

"When I heard this story I was so upset. I felt, ‘This is terrible. How? What’s the difference between the girl and the boys?’"

She attributes her crusade for sexual equality to her mother.

"I come from a family of seven brothers and five sisters. My mother treated us all the same way. I was brought up to feel I am a human being. I have a brain as good as man’s. So I was brought up to feel free, to express myself.

"When I got married, my husband was intimidated by my feelings of being free. He didn’t like it. It was like being in a new world that I didn’t know.

"If you have ideas, if you are a woman, they don’t want to listen to you. They think you are crazy. A woman is not supposed to behave like that. I say, ‘No I have to be myself,’" she says defiantly.

It is not just women who have been inspired by Njau’s work. Her nephew, Binyavanga Wainaina, winner of last year’s Caine Prize for African Literature, says she gave him the strength to follow his heart.

"I think I knew what I wanted to do from a very earlier age. But then when I looked around, I didn’t see how it was possible," he says.

"But the lifestyle that Auntie Rebeka lived offered me possibilities. There was somebody doing it. It was always good to have somebody who has been there to give you a guiding light," he says.

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