The Havoc of Choice by Wanjiru Koinange

I bought The Havoc Choice a few months ago, but I kept dithering on opening it, because I did not feel ready yet to confront the weighty issues that it addresses. I finally got around to reading it, and I am glad that I did. Only one word can sufficiently describe the story that Wanjiru Koinange tells in her debut novel; Important. The story is centred on a political family in Kenya. At first it seems that Kavata, the daughter of a long-time corrupt politician, will be the main character. By mid-story we however realise that the story is much bigger than that. Having grown up under her father’s shadow and witnessing his corrupt ways, Kavata abhors politics. She is therefore devastated when her husband becomes a political protégé of her father, against her wishes. Blind to her privilege and the inherent power that comes with it, she makes choices that will have devastating effects on not those close and around her. The book fictionalises the post-election violence of year of 2007/2008. Some of the most horrific events that characterised that part of Kenyan history, are given human faces and are steeped in emotional truths that one dare not deny. The book ends with no concrete resolutions and rightly so. Mirroring in part what happened after the politically driven violence, some characters end up in government with no justice for the victims. I had to think about Yvonne Awuor’s Dust while reading The Havoc of Choice. Despite the two writers being very different in their writing styles, these two books, albeit in different ways, confront how Kenya as a nation has dealt with its past failures and its shared traumas, or perhaps better put, how it has failed to deal with these issues. Would it be too ambitious, to hope to put this book, and perhaps Yvone Awuor’s Dust too, in every young Kenyan’s hands? One can only hope that art like this, will act as a catalyst to later generations, giving them a paradigm shift in quitting to relegate their moral responsibilities to those in power, as we and our parents have done.

Watch the review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akas7Fo6Tuw