The Baboon King will appeal particularly — but by no means exclusively — to younger readers. It is a story of belonging and exclusion, with as its backdrop the hills around Mount Kilimanjaro and African communities as yet untouched by European colonization.


The main character, Morengáru, grew up among the proud, warlike Masai but has now returned to live among the more sedentary, agricultural Kikuyu. His mother was once sold by one of the Kikuyu elders to a wandering Masai. Although used to the Masai way of life and an expert hunter, young Morengáru was never allowed to forget that he was not a full-blooded Masai like the rest of them. The day he passes the rites of manhood by killing a lion, he turns his back on the Masai. But the Kikuyu accept him only reluctantly. They do not esteem hunters, and Morengáru is a lousy farmer. But when a leopard kills half a dozen lambs, Morengáru proves his worth by tracking and killing the predator. He exacts a high price: two cows, exactly what all those years ago his Masai father paid for his mother. Morengáru may now be a rich man, but his wealth is intensely resented. His hunter’s instinct also brings about his downfall. He accidentally kills a young boy who only wanted to surprise him in his sleep. Too proud to plead for mercy from the tribal elders, Morengáru is expelled from the community and must leave the Kikuyu lands.


For a time he just roams about, following a one-horned oryx for no obvious reason until the finds the animal dead, killed by a lion. Then he comes face to face with a group of baboons and, challenged by their leader, he stands and fights. Morengáru kills the baboon, but is horribly wounded himself. As he nurses his wounds in a hollow baobab, he is as it were reborn. Although physically crippled and without his weapons, he replaces the defeated leader of the baboon troop. He learns to communicate with the baboons and retreats ever further into an animal state, but as he exploits his intelligence to compensate for his lack of bodily strength and agility, he is constantly reminded that he is human and they are not. One day a black leopard kills some of the baby baboons. Morengáru makes a net and traps the animal. As the baboons finish the leopard off, Morengáru begins to make his way back to human habitation.


An adventure story with a difference, The Baboon King manages to smuggle in a surprising amount of information about the ethnography and natural world of East Africa. The story also carries clear symbolic overtones, but they never become heavy-handed or intrusive. Sharply focused and economically told, this is in every sense a superior, gripping tale.

In a flash, the leopard came flying over the palisade, fastened his claws in the back of a calf, and bit through the bleating animal’s throat. Then, growling, he stayed there gripping the twitching animal, as if he wanted to go on enjoying the effect of his deadly bite. Maddened with fear, the cows pushed and jostled each other against the furthest side of the enclosure.

The nyama came with their torches and spears to surround him. Slowly, unwillingly, the leopard moved back a little, letting his blood-convered mouth sink between his paws, he drew his hind legs up underneath his body, all his muscles taut for the leap to safety.

As one, the nyama ran at him, snarling like the leopard himself. Twenty paces away they stopped, bounced a few times on their right feet and hurled their spears.

The leopard moved so unexpectedly and so fast that most of the spears missed. One spear hit and stuck, quivering, in his rump, but it didn’t hinder him. Instead of leaping away over the palisade, the leopard charged the nyama. With one swipe of his paw, he managed to wound four of the young men. (p. 13, tr. John Nieuwenhuizen)