Stories about Friendship

True friends are precious, and not many friends accompany our life from the beginning.  Almost all of us know that it is hard to find companions who are really true friends. Friends stay together, cry together, share happiness and have a lot of fun. Some of these stories about friendship are rooted in the oral tradition and have been told through many generations. Others are based upon personal experience, or creative imagination. However, central to all is the one idea that true friends are gifts of God.

African stories about friendship often teach a valuable lesson about crossing borders –  between races, generations or traditions. They tell how friends should act if their relationship is unwanted by their families, or the larger society. They reflect social tensions, upheavals that resulted from decolonization, the clash of cultures and the role of women in African societies.

h2. Friendship between black and white

Meja Mwangi tells of a friendship between a white boy from England and a black Kenyan boy during the hard times of the British rule over Kenya. Friendships between black and white people were considered unacceptable at that time.

Girls’ Friendship

Sefi Atta is a strong voice from Nigeria. Her novel, “Everything Good will Come”, tells of a lifelong friendship between two girls who come of age during the time when the Biafra war is looming and Nigeria is under military rule. Both girls struggle to find their place in a world dominated by patriarchal structures.