Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s The River Between and Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire
The characters presented in both Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie and The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o seek or reject cultural hybridity as they face pressure to conform to one culture or the other, yet it becomes apparent that while society will always promote a singular cultural identity, it is not actually possible to either achieve that or challenge it. Every person with links to more than one culture is inherently hybrid when it comes to their cultural identity, although a society or culture will likely expect a sort of loyalty to their group alone. Simply put, every person is shaped by their experiences and perceived in a way that is shaped by other people’s experiences, and regardless of their attempts they will likely never be able to belong in the way they want to to any one culture. In Home Fire, whether Isma goes above and beyond to prioritize Britian over her Pakistan roots or not, the British society will always see her as something else. This applies, too, to characters like Karamat who has achieved power and success within the British society. Characters from The River Between like Muthoni or Waiyaki will be pressured to choose between cultures and may attempt to belong to both, but this will not be accepted in the end.
Within Home Fire, we observe cultural hybridity in each of the characters, regardless of their strategy to approach their identity. In “Living In-between: Diaspora’s Identity Crisis and Hybridity in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire” from Pukhtunkhwa Journal, Pakistani authors Abid Nawaz, Imdad Ullah Khan, and Fazal Rabi write about the similarities between each of Shamsie’s characters responses to the conflict between British and Pakistani culture. Similarities are emphasized because despite any efforts by each character, they are and will always be hybrid. They embrace this in various ways, Parvaiz choosing to pursue his idea of Islamic culture, while Isma pursues the appearance of the perfect British citizen. Karamat and Eamonn perhaps distance themselves the furthest, but even they display traits of hybridity as they “frequently make references to both their native culture and the culture of their new nation.” (Nawaz et al 49) Karamat and Eamonn have the attitude that this is an opportunity, while Isma sees her inability to fit in as a “hinderance.” (Nawaz et al 50) This shows how the very idea of cultural hybridity is often determined by the western culture, as Isma’s level of success is determined by her ability to fit in to British culture.
That being said, Parvaiz notes experiencing the opposite. He feels a pressure to reconnect with Islamic culture, which actually opens him up to be preyed on and influenced by a terrorist group who convince him they represent everything that British culture is holding him back from. As seen in the text, things such as free schools and hospitals and large homes and cars for newcomers are not entirely real. Farooq tells some amount of truth, but both his false representation of that truth and the real parts of those benefits are just clever recruitment tactics. Even the things he tells Parvais about his father are not verifiable.
Next, Farooq takes advantage of Parvais’ insecurities when it comes to Isma’s superior knowledge on religion. In Britain where Parvais is, he claims, is an “emasculated version of Islam, bankrolled in mosques by the British government, which wants to keep us all compliant…” (Shamsie 133) Parvais is described as satisfied having heard this, because it relieves him of some shame at not really being a part of his religion. It also appeals to his insecurity as a man, having always been overshadowed by his sisters. This isn’t the way it should be, Farooq tells him, “‘Men are in charge of women because Allah has made one of them to excel the other.’” (Shamsie 132) Muslim scholars would disagree, however. In A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Thought in English, Prem Poddar and David Johnson write about the lack of historical records on women’s early experiences within Islam, yet do identify numorous areas where evidence challenges the Western perception of women having no agency. The Western perception of the harem, for example, is baselessly sexual and omits where the space within the “family business” reserved only for women developed a “parallel hierarch[y]… fully self regulating and with their own rigid rules of sovereignty.” (Johnson and Poddar 507) Neither the Western culture Parvais lives in nor the ISIS culture Farooq is glorifying are interested in portraying absolute truth on the relationship between Muslim men and women. Parvais has, then, just as much reason to believe Farooq as he does to believe the British.
It is notable that Karamat and Eamonn, Isma and Aneeka, and Parvaiz are all in the same position whether they accept that or not. That is, they all experience some sort of pressure to conform by society. Karamat, although seen as a threat to Islam by Isma and a representative of conformity, reveals the pressures he experiences to his son after telling him he still recites a prayer in times of stress. He asks his son never to mention it, commenting “I’d be nervous about a home secretary who’s spoken openly about his atheism but secretly recites Muslim prayers. Wouldn’t you?” (Shamsie 110) Eamonn is influenced by his father to assimilate fully into British culture and his father encourages him that his girlfriend likely will follow. Similarly, Parvais’ idea of his father and longing for him causes him to pursue the choices his father did. After all, the culture that Parvaiz lives in discourages and distrusts the culture he and his father belong to, and it was his father who could see beyond that according to Farooq– his father was a man who “…saw beyond the lines of national boundaries…” (Shamsie 130) Caught in a society which has seen him stopped by the police just for his appearance, Parvais finds an idealogy which is an opportunity to separate himself from it. However, this is not a real way to achieve cultural hybridity, as ISIS also requires him to cut off entirely his family and practices from home.
Interestingly especially when concerning Parvaiz, Stanford professor Dr. Eamonn Callan writes an analogy using a parent-child relationship to illustrate a culture-person relationship. Just like an adult child is often expected to reciprocate a familial level of care as a repayment of sorts, a person belonging to a specific culture is expected to protect and align with that culture. He writes that he takes it as “analogous to filial love in the sense that the role responsibilities it entails encompass exigent attitudinal demands and not merely behavioral requirements. To maintain cultural fidelity is not merely to behave outwardly but to think and feel as those who properly belong to that culture.” (Callan 479) A different yet slightly similar situation is the one both Isma and Aneeka find themselves in with Eamonn. Isma seeks to impress Eamonn in some way by removing her hijab. Aneeka exposes herself to a further degree, even embracing the Western notion of the hijab as sexual in order to get close to him. Eamonn describes the first of his sexual encounters with Aneeka with an awestruck tone as he describes how she removes all her clothing but her headscarf, and he even asks her to keep it on.
Similar struggles to those of the central characters in Home Fire are experienced by people like Waiyaki and Muthoni in The River Between. Honia, the river spoken of in the title, literally divides the ridges of Kameno and Makuyu. While physically separated, the two places were also divided by religion and ideals. The book opens with a description of two fighting boys, and Waiyaki there to intervene. This fight seems symbolic of the role Waiyaki will be expected to take on in unifying Kameno and Makuyu. Unlike this fight, however, it will not be as easy to achieve reconciliation. Only a few pages later, Waiyaki’s father Chege takes him out into the country to look at the mountain and the valleys. He tells him about a prophecy. “‘Salvation shall come from the hills’’” Chege says, “‘From the blood that flows in me, I say from the same tree, a son shall rise. And his duty will be to lead and save the people!’” (Thiong’o 20) Chege describes the white men, and how one cannot kill them until one knows their ways and movement. Therefore, he sends Waiyaki off to study at the white man’s school. This choice will give Waiyaki an understanding of two different ways of life– both his tribe’s and the white Christian settlers. This is, perhaps, the closest any character will get to cultural hybridity in the novel. However, his father’s intention in sending Waiyaki there is not to give him that understanding or hybridity. It is instead to equip him to drive out the white people as an ultimate act of loyalty to his own.
The genius of Thiong’o’s work with Waiyaki’s character is that he perfectly presents a character who is set up to and even pursues unification between the ridges. Yet, the book’s ambiguous but heavily implied negative ending reflects a brutal reality of life. Florida professor Apollo Amoko, who specializes in postcolonial theory and African literature, wrote that “In Nationalist allegories… Waiyaki’s marraige to Joshua’s daughter would overcome the division between Kameno and Makuyu.” (Amoko 37) As he points out, love is a frequent idealized concept that resolves conflicts and brings communities together and the story to a happy close. However, Thiong’o is not so romantic in ending his story. Neither culture will accept a unity between a member of their own in-group and a member from another. “How could he work for the togetherness and purity of the tribe and then marry a girl who was not circumcised? How could he do this to them?” (Thiong’o 147) This is what the crowd wonders as Waiyaki confirms his love for Nyambura. The idea of purity being mentioned seems to contradict the central idea of the prophecy– that the two ridges would be reunified. That is because, in the tribe’s mind, the natural/correct way that Kameno and Makuyu should be unified is not by compromise. Apollo Amoko reminds that Chege’s description of the myths as told to Waiyaki suggests that the ideological rift between the two ridges is unnatural and to be corrected, but “that the precolonial order is natural…” (Amoko 38) Unity, then, comes from taking the land back rather than finding shared ground or peace with eachother even if through the often idealized institution of a love marraige.
The latter part of the crowd’s complaint, “how could he do this to them?” (Thiong’o 107) calls back to Eamonn Callan’s explanation of the expectation of cultural commitment. He says in his article “The Ethics of Assimilation” that “To fail morally here is to betray relationships (or perhaps to fail to cultivate relationships) that are properly central to identity.” (Callan 479) Waiyaki’s people expect a loyalty from him that when strayed from is seen as a betrayal. Creating a relationship outside of his cultural group is abandoning the relationships he had within it. Earlier, the comparison of Parvais and his father and Eamonn and his father were parallel with the concept of filial responsibility. Callan goes on to talk about love as it relates to this obligation as well. “The attitudinal demands at issue here are not the same as love, though I take it that they are like love in that they link our lives to the fate of particular others in a robust sense of common fate.” (Callan 479) Waiyaki is attempting to link himself to another person, to another fate, outside of the natural order perceived by his people whom he should be loyal to.
Muthoni is perhaps the character who communicates wanting to find a compromise but failing in the clearest, most literal way. She fails to understand how she cannot have a connection to both her Christian faith and to the cultural concept of womanhood she knows from the hills. She expresses her confusion to Nyambura. “Father and Mother are circumcised. Are they not Christians? Circumcision did not prevent them from being Christians. I too have embraced the white man’s faith. However, I know it is beautiful… to be initiated into womanhood. You learn the way of the tribe.” (Thiong’o 25) Muthoni wishes for a connection with both aspects of her heritage. She believes in the Christian God entirely, while also holding the traditional practices of her tribe in high regard. She does not see running away from her home as a rebellion in the way everyone else does. When questioned by Waiyaki, she responds, “No one will understand. I say I am a Christian and my father and mother have followed the new faith. I have not run away from that. But I want to be initiated into the ways of the tribe.” (Thiong’o 42) Yet, her father Joshua sees things entirely differently. If she chooses to get circumcised, he will disown her. Her responsibility to her family will have been ruined and betrayed if she chooses the tribe’s tradition.
When Muthoni fails to heal from her wound, the people of the tribe hypothesize that it could be a result of the evil her father has done against the tribe. When Waiyaki goes to see her, she wishes for her sister. She knows the rest of her family would not or could not come. Nyambura, though, does come just in time. Ironically a return to the white man’s world to receive medicine at the hospital is attempted to save her, but she dies. Before dying she says, “Waiyaki… tell Nyambura I see Jesus. And I am a woman, beautiful in the tribe.” (Thiong’o 51) In a way, Muthoni accomplished her goal. She died a circumsized Christian. Yet, her father does not mourn her, having ceased to recognize her as his daughter. Chege and the tribe see this as proof that the white man’s faith and its followers is an evil, and that there is no room for it within the tribe. Muthoni’s death is “a punishment to Joshua… [and] a punishment to the hills. It was a warning to all, to stick to the ways of the ridges, to the ancient wisdom of the land, to its ritual and song.” (Thiong’o 52) This seems like an odd conclusion to come to, given that it is a Gikuyu custom that killed Muthoni. But her belonging to the opposing ridge and its opposing culture is betrayal enough to have caused the tragedy in their minds. Meanwhile the tragedy of the situation to Joshua is not her death, but rather her choice to persue circumcision in the first place.
Both authors and their respective novels portray the attempts of people to cultivate and maintain links to separate cultures, or to flee from one or the other. While Kamila Shamsie’s characters largely attempt to choose one culture over the other and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s try to find unity between them, both books illustrate the impossibility of either. For Isma and for Karamat, even pursuing completely British culture will not remove the suspicion or stereotyping that comes with the culture they’ve rejected to varying degrees. Parvais finds that choosing a culture outside his own homeland means losing the one his family belongs to. Similarly, Waiyaki and Muthoni are rejected by both cultures as a result of envisioning a unified version of them. In each of these character’s personal stories, it becomes apparent that the cultural hybridity of a person is largely out of their control. It is shaped by their experience and the assumptions made by the people around them. It is not, however, something that can be easily changed regardless of how they make that attempt.
Works Cited:
Amoko, Apollo O. “The Resemblance of Colonial Mimicry: A Revisionary Reading of Ngugi
Wa Thiong’o’s ‘The River Between.’” Research in African Literatures, vol. 36, no. 1, 2005, pp. 34–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3821318. Accessed 2 May 2026.
Callan, Eamonn. “The Ethics of Assimilation.” Ethics, vol. 115, no. 3, 2005, pp. 471–500.
JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/428460. Accessed 30 Apr. 2026.
Living In-between: Diaspora’s Identity Crisis and Hybridity in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire
Poddar, Prem, and David Johnson. A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in
English. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2022.
Shamsie, Kamila. Home Fire. New York, Riverhead Books, 2017.
Thiongʼo, Ngũgĩ Wa. The River Between. 1965. New York, New York, Penguin Books, 2015.
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