A Guide Book to Margaret A Ogola's The River and the Source Series

Reading the African novel is a challenging task.This is more so when a novel is as long and wide and complex as Margaret Ogola's famous novel The River and the Source. This guide  book however makes your task easy. It divides the novel into four distinct sections and examines them one by one. It then gives you tips on how to approach CONTEXT and ESSAY questions based on this novel - with good examples - and helps you deal with other novels in the same way.

This is the SECOND BOOKLET in the MARGARET OGOLA'S THE RIVER AND THE SOURCE series. It examines the nature of the themes against world themes in literature, and the Elements of Style used in this novel. Themes and Style are studied in depth to enable the reader not only get insight into the nevel but also acquire skills applicable to the study of other novels.

The study of the modern African novel has been quite a challenge both at the high school and at the university level. This is especially so for novels that address traditional tenets of the African society. These novels, however, form a good corpus as a basis for comparative literature, especially looking at the African novel as compared to its European or the American counterpart. Still, the odinary critic is used to earlier African writers including Ngugi, Achebe, Soyinka and the rest. Margaret Ogola presents a challenging novel in The River and the Source because it examines the modern African society. This critical book of this novel affords the reader all the necessary angles from which this novel can be seen including Plot, Character, Themes and Elements of Style. It goes further to examine common ways of examining the novel by giving excerpt and essay questions and explaining in detail how such questions should be approached. The book focuses on the national exam in Kenya - the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination through which candidates matriculate and qualify for entry to the university. This, however, should give a good insight to any candidate worldwide regardless of the examination they are supposed to sit for. The book looks at the division of time as well as thinking how to earn marks and ensuring the candidate ganers as much as possible of what is given. These explanations will allow the candidate of a different examination to adjust depending on the time allowed and the marks given for questions in that particular examination. This makes this book applicable to the student of the novel - and the African novel in particular - anywhere in the world. 

The study of the modern African novel has been quite a challenge both at the high school and at the university level. This is especially so for novels that address traditional tenets of the African society. These novels, however, form a good corpus as a basis for comparative literature, especially looking at the African novel as compared to its European or the American counterpart. Still, the odinary critic is used to earlier African writers including Ngugi, Achebe, Soyinka and the rest. Margaret Ogola presents a challenging novel in The River and the Source because it examines the modern African society. This critical book of this novel affords the reader all the necessary angles from which this novel can be seen including Plot, Character, Themes and Elements of Style. It goes further to examine common ways of examining the novel by giving excerpt and essay questions and explaining in detail how such questions should be approached. The book focuses on the national exam in Kenya - the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination through which candidates matriculate and qualify for entry to the university. This, however, should give a good insight to any candidate worldwide regardless of the examination they are supposed to sit for. The book looks at the division of time as well as thinking how to earn marks and ensuring the candidate ganers as much as possible of what is given. These explanations will allow the candidate of a different examination to adjust depending on the time allowed and the marks given for questions in that particular examination. This makes this book applicable to the student of the novel - and the African novel in particular - anywhere in the world.