This question was posed by a young lady at an evening function at the Karen Country Club, in June 2015, after Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o had addressed members of the Club. The function had been organized by Ngũgĩ's publishers, East African Educational Publishers (EAEP), as part of an elaborate program that had been planned by the publishers to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Ngũgĩ's Weep Not, Child.

In order for us to appreciate the weight of that lady's question, it is important to shed a bit of light on the nature of the Karen Country Club. This Club was inaugurated in 1937, a year before Ngũgĩ was born. It is one of the most exclusive golf clubs in Kenya, and it is common knowledge that most golfers are affluent and prominent. In addition, for one to become a member of the Club, one has to pay 500,000 Kenya shillings (membership rates as at December 2017), which is about 50,000 US dollars, and a substantial annual subscription fee. There is no doubt that this is a preserve of the affluent. And it has been so from its inception.

Being peasant farmers, Ngũgĩ's parents could not have dreamt of being admitted into such a Club, or even allowed to fetch firewood on the vast bush, where branches of the many cedar trees at times break and fall to the ground, but are left to disintegrate on their own. And for many years, Ngũgĩ himself could not have joined, or visited the Club, because his ideological leaning, and his writing, were not compatible with the thinking of most members of the Club. In addition, during those early days, Ngũgĩ probably did not have the wherewithal to pay for, and sustain, membership in such a club. In any case, those of us who have read about Ngũgĩ's lifestyle during those early days will agree that he was never excited whiling away a social evening in such clubs.