The Tongue Between the Teeth is the story of a pastoralist society caught between its own strong culture and the urban life.in newly independent Kenya. Through Halkano, the unlettered and unforgiving traditionalist, and Ali the face of the new ways of life, the author tells how poverty and the prevailing environment, shapes lives. Like the tongue that must work between the sharp teeth, with all its ensuing dangers, the individual is trapped in the engulfing poverty and the inability to adapt to the new way of life. To survive, he/she must struggle in the new world, that the society did not prepare him/her for, and more often than not, ending in tragedy