This paper argues that the first-generation African writers did employ the strategy of mythologizing (inclusive of both retelling and creating myths) as well as that of demythologizing in their early narratives. This paper investigates the ways the tw ...

This paper argues that the first-generation African writers did employ the strategy of mythologizing (inclusive of both retelling and creating myths) as well as that of demythologizing in their early narratives. This paper investigates the ways the two postcolonial narrative strategies are used in Ngugi wa Thiong'o’s The River Between and Weep Not, Child. The significances and purposes of these strategies in Ngugi’s early novels will be charted through a brief comparison with the narrative features of the first novels of other postcolonial African writers. The conclusion of this paper is that Ngugi exploits both the mythic/mythologizing discourses and the demythologizing/rationalizing discourses for the cause of decolonization, and especially the former discourses should be comprehended as a precursor of the Kenyan author’s Fanonian search for the national culture of resistance.