The Missing Links by Tobias Odongo Otieno

The Missing Links by Tobias Odongo Otieno is a powerful and humorous debut novel that portrays the tension and contradiction of a Kenyan society caught between two worlds. The story centers on Nyakane, a high-school student whose unexpected pregnancy forces her out of the modern city of Nairobi and back to her husband's ancestral village, Odendo. There, she confronts a difficult reality of rural poverty, social taboos, and the stark clash between urban affluence and village squalor, all set against the backdrop of gold-mining activity. Otieno fearlessly satirizes ignorance and hypocritical religion in his quest for a sharpened, truthful perception of a society in constant, often painful, change.