A MAN IN A MIRROR

Awakened and lively concern in the rousing of the sleeping giant of Africa will provide the springboard of interest in this unusual (and not always easy) novel of a young Masai warrior, Nterenke, who finds himself torn between tradition and training in the ways of his people- and the English school tenets of Western mores. Richard Llewellyn writes with the assurance of one who has steeped himself in the African culture; the early third of the book sometimes bogs down in the meticulous assessment of unfamiliar, strange and often shocking folkways, argued pro and con in an attempt to throw light on a murder case. But bit by bit the characters participating in the drama come into focus; the rationalization of two cultures through vision, aspiration and rather extraordinary flexibility of judgment lays the groundwork for a future for the tribes; and Nterenke takes firm hold of the leadership that is his by right, and the girls he claims as his wives find that they too can come to terms with the old and the new. While pace of story is secondary to the portrait of an emergent race, the book leaves a mark on the imagination that few factual presentations achieve. The problem looms larger than life; the solution demands patience above all.