Piano is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Bowling Green University in Ohio. In this essay, Piano analyzes how Ogot reveals the way that British colonialism disrupts indigenous communities by introducing alien concepts and beliefs that conflict with traditional values.

Written in 1968, Grace Ogot's short story "The Green Leaves" takes place over the course of one night and the following morning. Yet within this short time frame, Ogot effectively illustrates the negative effects of colonialism on indigenous people in East Africa. She does this by developing a number of different conflicts that are both internal, as seen in Nyagar's conflicted emotions, and external, as rendered in the verbal exchanges between the European police officer, the clan leader, Olielo, and Nyamundhe, Nyagar's wife. Ogot uses third-person omniscient point of view as a method of revealing the clan's vulnerability to colonization due to deteriorating communal values. What were...