N ot e s

Introduction

1. David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlight-enment (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 47.

2. Scott, Conscripts of Modernity, 70.3. Scott, Conscripts of Modernity, 70.4. For a discussion of the relationship between the genre of romance and

European nationalism see, for example, Marlon B. Ross, “Romancingthe Nation-State: The Poetic of Romantic Nationalism,” Macropoli-tics of Nineteenth-Century Literature, eds Jonathan Arac and HarrietRitvo (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), 56–85.

5. Carol Sicherman, “Revolutionizing the Literature Curriculum at theUniversity of East Africa: Literature and the Soul of the Nation,”Research in African Literatures 29.3 (1998), 125.

6. Biodun Jeyifo, “The Nature of Things: Arrested Decolonization andCritical Theory,” Research in African Literatures 21.1 (1990), 43.

7. The key texts include Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, ed.Samuel Lipmann (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), andF. R. Leavis, English Literature in Our Time and the University(London: Chatto & Windus, 1969) and The Great Tradition: GeorgeEliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad (New York: New York UniversityPress, 1963).

8. John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Canon Formation(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 19.

9. James Ngugi, Henry Owuor-Anyumba, and Taban lo Liyong, “Onthe Abolition of the English Department,” Homecoming: Essays onAfrican and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics, ed. JamesNgugi (London: Heinemann, 1972), 145.

10. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 145.11. Quoted in, “On the Abolition,” 145.12. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 145.13. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 145.14. Quoted in, “On the Abolition,” 145–46.15. Leavis, English Literature, 3.16. Leavis, English Literature, 8.17. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 146.

180 N ot e s

18. Simon Gikandi, Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Cultureof Colonialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 234(footnote 26).

19. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 146.20. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 146.21. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language

in African Literature (London: James Currey, 1986), 89–90.22. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 146.23. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 146.24. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 146. Ngugi’s positions are more

complex than this “snapshot” reading suggests. In his later work,he would become sharply critical of the role of the university in theneocolonial exploitation of Kenya. See, for example, my reading ofPetals of Blood and Devil on the Cross. Also, Ngugi’s Afrocentricismwas tempered by his commitment to Marxism. In “The Robber andthe Robbed” (Writers in Politics [London: Heinemann EducationalBooks, 1981], 123–39), to cite one example, Ngugi defines literaturein terms not of race but of imperialism. He suggests that literary valuebe defined in terms of a global struggle against imperialism and capi-talism. According to this argument, there is a fundamental connectionbetween the African proletariat and peasantry and the working peopleof Asia and Latin America. But see also “Europhonism, Universitiesand the Magic Fountain: The Future of African Literature and Schol-arship,” Research in African Literature 31.1 (Spring 2000), 1–11. Inthis essay, Ngugi attempts to define all the disciplines, not just theliterature department, of an Afrocentric university.

25. Angus Calder, “Africanisation of the Curriculum,” Internal Memo-rumdum, Department of Literature, University of Nairobi, 6 June1971.

26. Paulin Hountondji, African Philosophy: Myth and Reality SecondEdition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), xii.

27. Hountondji, African Philosophy, 33.28. Hountondji, African Philosophy, 66.29. Ngugi et al., “On the Abolition,” 146–47.30. Simon Gikandi, “African Literature and the Social Science Paradigm,”

paper commissioned by the Social Science Research Council, NewYork, 25.

31. Guillory, Cultural Capital, 38.32. Guillory, Cultural Capital, 50.33. Kenneth Kaunda, “Addresses at the Installation” quoted in J. F. Ade

Ajayi, Lameck K. H. Goma, and G. Ampah Johnson, The AfricanExperience with Higher Education (Athens, Ohio: Ohio UniversityPress, 1996), 1.

34. Ajayi et al., The African Experience, 1.35. Ajayi et al., The African Experience, 1.

N ot e s 181

36. Ajayi et al., The African Experience, 1.37. For an instructive set of interviews with many of these pioneering

writers recalling their heady student days at Ibadan, see Robert Wren,Those Magical Years: The Making of Nigerian Literature at Ibadan1948–1966 (Washington, D. C.: Three Continents Press, 1991).

38. F. Abiola Irele, The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and theBlack Diaspora (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 173.

39. Irele, The African Imagination, 173.40. Irele, The African Imagination, 175.41. Irele, The African Imagination, 175.42. Irele, The African Imagination, 175–76.43. Irele, The African Imagination, 181.44. Irele, The African Imagination, 176.45. Irele, The African Imagination, 181.46. Irele, The African Imagination, 181.47. The phrase “homogenous, empty time,” is taken from Benedict

Anderson’s Imagined Communities, a text that I address in greaterdetail in what follows.

48. Irele, The African Imagination, 177.49. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington

(New York: Grove Press, 1963), 209.50. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 210.51. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 209.52. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 209.53. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 209.54. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 223.55. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 225.56. Wai Chee Dimock, “Literature for the Planet,” PMLA 116.1 (January

2001), 174.57. Dimock, “Literature for the Planet,” 174.

Chapter 1

1. Fredric Jameson, “Third-World Literature in the Era of MultinationalCapitalism,” Social Text, 69 (Fall 1986), 69.

2. Simon Gikandi, “African Literature and the Social Science Paradigm,”unpublished manuscript, 28.

3. André-Paul Michaud, “Nature as Agency in Ngugi’s The RiverBetween,” Critical Essays on Ngugı wa Thiong’o, ed. Peter Nazareth(New York: Twayne Publishers, 2000), 49.

4. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, The River Between (London: Heinemann, 1965),1. Subsequent references to this edition will be included parentheti-cally in the body of my text.

5. Michaud, “Nature as Agency,” 49.

182 N ot e s

6. Ato Sekyi-Otu, “The Refusal of Agency: The Founding Narrativeand Waiyaki Tragedy in The River Between,” Research in AfricanLiteratures 16.2 (1985), 159.

7. Sekyi-Otu, “Refusal of Agency,” 159–60.8. Homi K. Bhabha, “Representation and the Colonial Text: A Critical

Examination of Some Forms of Mimeticism,” Theory of Reading, ed.Frank Gloversmith (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1984), 97.

9. Sekyi-Otu, “Refusal of Agency,” 167.10. Simon Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o (New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2000), 66.11. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 238.12. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New

York: Vintage, 1979), 228.13. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 61.14. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 62.15. Gikandi, “African Literature,” 19. Gikandi suggests that Jomo

Kenyatta’s Facing Mount Kenya was the mediating text betweenMalinowski and Ngugi.

16. Gikandi, “African Literature,” 19.17. Sekyi-Otu, “Refusal of Agency,” 173.18. Sekyi-Otu, “Refusal of Agency,” 172.19. Sekyi-Otu, “Refusal of Agency,” 172.20. Quoted in Reinhardt Sander and Ian Munro, “Tolstoy in Africa: An

Interview with Ngugi wa Thiong’o,” Critical Perspectives on Ngugiwa Thiong’o, ed. G. D. Killam (Washington, D.C.: Three ContinentsPress, 1984), 52.

21. Quoted in Sander and Munro, “Tolstoy in Africa,” 52.22. For a comprehensive historical account of the brutality of British rule

during the state of emergency in late colonial Kenya, see CarolineElkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag inKenya (New York: Henry Holt, 2005).

23. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Weep Not, Child (London: Heinemann, 1964),25–6. Subsequent references to this edition will be included paren-thetically in the body of my text.

24. G. D. Killam, “Weep Not, Child,” Critical Essays on Ngugi waThiong’o, ed. Peter Nazareth (New York: Twayne Publishers, 2000),64–5.

25. Killam, “Weep Not, Child,” 65.26. John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon

Formation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 18.27. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin

and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 24.28. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.29. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.30. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.

N ot e s 183

31. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 121–2.32. Sekyi-Otu, “Refusal of Agency,” 167.33. James Ogude, Ngugi’s Novels and African History: Narrating the

Nation (London: Pluto Press, 1999), 111.34. Ogude, Ngugi’s Novels, 111.35. Ogude, Ngugi’s Novels, 111.36. For a decisive repudiation of the figure of the unimpeachably innocent

child, see Lee Edelman, “The Future is Kid Stuff: Queer The-ory, Disidentification, and the Death Drive,” Narrative 6.1(January1998), 18–30. Edelman writes:

Historically constructed [ . . . ] to serve as the figural repositoryfor sentimentalized cultural identifications, the child has come toembody for us the telos of the social order and been enshrinedas the figure for whom that order must be held in perpetualtrust. The image itself, however, in its coercive universalization,works to discipline political discourse by consigning it always toaccede in advance to the reality of a collective futurity whose fig-urative status we are never permitted to acknowledge or address.(20–1)

Drawing on Edelman’s arguments, I suggest that the image ofMwihaki and Njoroge (and indeed that of Njoroge and Stephen)as the innocent embodiments of the ideal postcolonial social ordermust be contested for its coercive universalizing of a denuded socialorder.

Chapter 2

1. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Petals of Blood, First American Edition(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978), 344. Subsequent references to thistext will be included parenthetically in the body of my book.

2. Fredric Jameson, “Third-World Literature in the Era of MultinationalCapitalism,” Social Text 69 (Fall 1986), 81.

3. James Ogude, Ngugi’s Novels and African History: Narrating theNation (London: Pluto Press, 1999), 142.

4. Paulo Friere, Cultural Action for Freedom (New York: Penguin,1972), 9. See also Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Newrevised 20th-Anniversary ed., trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (NewYork: Continuum, 1993).

5. Peter Nazareth, “The Second Homecoming: Multiple Ngugis inPetals of Blood,” Marxism and African Literature, ed. Georg M.Gugelberger (London: James Currey, 1985), 122.

6. Nazareth, “Second Homecoming,” 122.7. Simon Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o (New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2000), 135.

184 N ot e s

8. Nazareth, “Second Homecoming,” 122.9. Nazareth, “Second Homecoming,” 122.

10. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 148.11. For an example of the lack of correspondence, in this realist text,

between the characters’ life circumstances and their discursive register,Nazareth points to a passage in which Karega, a high school expellee,articulates a critique of the Kenyan postcolony in a Marxist vocabularythat is lifted virtually word for word from Ngugi’s Homecoming. SeeNazareth, “Second Homecoming,” 122–3.

12. The texts in question include Godfrey Muriuki, A History of theKikuyu,1500–1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), BethuelA. Ogot, History of the Southern Luo (Nairobi: East African Pub-lishing House, 1967), Gideon S. Were, History of the Abaluyia ofWestern Kenya c1500–1930 (Nairobi: East African Publishing House,1967), and William Ochieng’, A Pre-colonial History of the Gusii ofWestern Kenya c. A.D. 1500–1914 (Kampala: East African Publish-ing House, 1974). Alarmingly, many of the literary critics, such asPatrick Williams and Alamin Mazrui, who take at face value Ngugi’scharacterization of these texts as “neocolonial” do not engage withthe much-maligned texts, much less consider the context in whichthey were produced. In defense of the much-maligned historians,suffice it to say that, contemporaneous with the famed revolutionin the literature department at the University of Nairobi in the late1960s and early 1970s, radical changes were taking place in thehistory department both in terms of subject matter and methodol-ogy. Largely as a result of the efforts of the four historians Nguginames, precolonial African history was institutionalized as a field ofstudy. Not only that, oral sources came to be institutionalized aslegitimate bodies of historical evidence. Even a cursory glance atthese founding texts of African historiography would demonstrate thatthey reject rather than accept colonial assumptions about precolonialAfrica.

13. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams: Towards aCritical Theory of the Arts and the State in Africa (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1998), 4.

14. Ngugi, Penpoints, 4.15. Ngugi, Penpoints, 4.16. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Ori-

gin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition (New York: Verso,1991), xiv.

17. Anderson, Imagined Communities, xiv.18. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 193.19. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 193.20. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 194.21. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 194.22. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 195.

N ot e s 185

23. See also J. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Politi-cal Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1975).

24. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 15.25. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 15.26. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 15.27. Jameson, “Third-World Literature,” 80.28. William Ochieng’, “Undercivilization in Black Africa,” The First Word:

Essays on Kenya History (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau,1975), 18.

29. Ochieng’, “Undercivilization,” 18–19.30. Ochieng’, “Undercivilization,” 6.31. Florence Stratton, Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of

Gender (New York: Routledge, 1994), 48.32. Ogude, Ngugi’s Novels, 118.33. Ogude, Ngugi’s Novels, 119.34. Stratton, Contemporary African Literature, 7.35. David Cook and Michael Okenimkpe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o: An Explo-

ration of His Writings (London: Heinemann, 1983), 113.36. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 210.37. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Devil on the Cross, trans. Ngugi wa Thiong’o

(London: Heinemann, 1982), 203–04. Subsequent references to thistext will be made parenthetically in the body of my book.

38. Patrick Williams, Ngugi wa Thiong’o (New York: Manchester Univer-sity Press, 1999), 109.

39. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 219.40. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 220.41. Elleke Boehmer, “The Master’s Dance to the Master’s Voice: Revolu-

tionary Nationalism and the Representation of Women in the Writingof Ngugi wa Thiong’o,” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 26.1(1991), 195.

42. For an exploration of the significance of these choices, see GitahiGititi, “Recuperating a ‘Disappearing’ Art Form: Resonances of‘Gicaandi’ in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross,” The World ofNgugi wa Thiong’o, ed. Charles Cantalupo (Trenton, NJ: Africa WorldPress, 1995), 109–28.

43. Ngugi, Decolonising the Mind, 86.44. Ngugi, Decolonising the Mind, 83.45. Ngugi, Decolonising the Mind, 83.46. John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon

Formation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), ix.47. Ogude, Ngugi’s Novels, 165–6, footnote 4.48. Henry Chakava, “Publishing Ngugi: The Challenge, the Risk, and

the Reward,” Ngugi wa Thiong’o, ed. Charles Cantalupo (Trenton,NJ: Africa World Press), 15.

49. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 209.

186 N ot e s

50. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 208.51. Arguably, the relative marginalization of Swahili literature continues. I

am grateful to Professor Mohammed Abdulaziz of the Department ofKiswahili at the University of Nairobi for drawing my attention to theproblem of the continued marginalization of Swahili and other indige-nous languages in the academic discipline of literature in English inKenya.

52. Michel Foucault, “Questions of Method,” The Foucault Effect: Studiesin Governmentality, eds Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and PeterMiller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 76.

53. F. Odun Balogun, Ngugi and the African Postcolonial Narrative: TheNovel as Oral Narrative in Multigenre Performance (St. Hyacinth,Quebec: World Heritage Press, 1997), 59.

54. Eileen Julien, African Novels and the Question of Orality (Blooming-ton: Indiana University Press, 1992), 142.

55. Gikandi argues that the opening of the narrative in the formulaicmanner of Gikuyu folktales is particularly pronounced in an over-ture included in the Gikuyu original but omitted from the Englishtranslation. For a discussion of this overture and its relationship tothe narrative convention of traditional Gikuyu folktales, see Gikandi,Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 211.

56. Julien, African Novels, 143–4.57. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 212.58. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 213–14.59. Julien, African Novels, 143.60. Julien, African Novels, 144.61. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 273.

Chapter 3

1. See Seth Adagala, “The Long Hard Battle to Stage Kimathi Play,”Daily Nation 10 Oct. 1976: 15.

2. Gichingiri Ndigirigi, “Kenyan Theatre After Kamiriithu,” TDR(Drama Review) 43.2 (Summer 1999), 72.

3. Simon Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000), 264.

4. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 264.5. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 163.6. Andrew Apter, “The Pan-African Nation: Oil Money and the Specta-

cle of Culture in Nigeria,” Public Culture 8.3 (Spring 1996), 441.7. Apter, “The Pan-African Nation,” 445.8. Apter, “The Pan-African Nation,” 445.9. Quoted in Apter, “The Pan-African Nation”, 445–6.

10. Apter, “The Pan-African Nation,” 447.11. Apter, “The Pan-African Nation,” 447.

N ot e s 187

12. Josphat Gichingiri Ndigirigi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the Kamiri-ithu Popular Theater Experiment (Ph.D. dissertation: University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles, 1998), 40.

13. Nicholas Brown, “Revolution and Recidivism: The Problem ofKenyan History in the Plays of Ngugi wa Thiong’o,” Research inAfrican Literatures 30.4 (Winter 1999), 56.

14. David William Cohen, The Combing of History (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1994), 60.

15. Cohen, The Combing of History, 60.16. Cohen, The Combing of History, 60.17. See, for example, Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold

Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (New York: Henry Holt, 2005);David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenyaand the End of Empire (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005). See also Pas-cal James Imperato, “Differing Perspectives on Mau Mau”, AfricanStudies Review 48.3 (2005), 147–54.

18. Cohen, The Combing of History, 61.19. Cohen, The Combing of History, 61.20. Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Githae Mugo, The Trial of Dedan

Kimathi (London: Heineman, 1976), preface.21. Ngugi and Mguo, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, preface.22. E. S. Atieno Odhiambo, “Rebutting ‘Theory’ with Correct Theory: A

Comment on The Trial of Dedan Kimathi,” Kenya Historical Review5.2 (1977), 386. Considering the conservative reputation that Kenyanhistorians seem to have acquired (at least in certain circles of theliterary academy), it bears emphasizing that Odhiambo offers a rad-ical Marxist critique of Ngugi’s and Mugo’s questionable Mau Mauhistoriography.

23. Odhiambo, “Rebutting ‘Theory,’ ” 386.24. Odhiambo, “Rebutting ‘Theory,’ ” 386.25. Odhiambo, “Rebutting ‘Theory,’ ” 386.26. Quoted in Cohen, The Combing of History, 60.27. Ngugi and Mugo, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, preface.28. Quoted in Magaga Alot, “Kenya Prepares for Festac ’77 in Lagos,”

Weekly Review, 27 Dec. 1976: 31.29. For an example of a critic who shares Ngugi’s negative assessment of

Watene’s play, one could point to Ndigirigi. He welcomes the fact thatNgugi’s and Mugo’s “positive” portrayal of Dedan Kimathi replacedWatene’s “negative” one as Kenya’s official representative to Festac.For an example of a critic who cites Ngugi’s criticisms of Watene andpasses over them in silence, see Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 177.

30. Tellingly, the story of the rape and murder of Dr. Lynd during aMau Mau raid is expunged from a later edition of A Grain of Wheatpublished in 1986. By the mid-1980s, it would seem Ngugi hadbecome too embarrassed of his erstwhile ambivalence toward Mau

188 N ot e s

Mau violence to retain the morally compromised scene. This revisionhelps underscore the suspicion that Ngugi’s polemical condemnationof Watene’s play represents, in large measure, an unarticulated gestureof belated, if unacknowledged, self-critique.

31. John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary CanonFormation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 7.

32. Guillory, Cultural Capital, 8.33. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Kenyan Culture: The National Struggle for

Survival,” Guardian 7 June 1979, reprinted in, Writers in Politics(London: Heinemann, 1981), 42–43.

34. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 42.35. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 43.36. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 43.37. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 43.38. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 43.39. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 43.40. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 46.41. Ngugi, Writers in Politics, 46.42. Kamonye wa Manje, “Dedan Kimathi by Kenneth Watene,” Umma I

(1975), 78.43. wa Manje, “Dedan Kimathi,” 75.44. wa Manje, “Dedan Kimathi,” 76.45. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge,

1994), 66.46. Kamau Kiarie, “Literary Works Should Celebrate Our Heroes,” East

African Standard. Online edition, 17 Mar. 2002, <www.eastandard.net>.

47. Kiarie, “Literary Works.”48. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 67.49. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 67.50. J. C. Carothers, The Psychology of the Mau Mau quoted in David

Maughn-Brown, Land, Freedom and Fiction: History and Ideology inKenya (London: Zed Books, 1985), 50.

51. J. Carothers quoted in Maugham-Brown, Land, Freedom and Ideol-ogy, 50.

52. F. D. Corfield, The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau: An Histori-cal Survey, Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (Nairobi: GovernmentPrinter, 1960), 1.

53. Corfield, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 7.54. Corfield, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 7.55. Corfield, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 7–8.56. Corfiled, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 263.57. Corfiled, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 9.58. Ian Henderson and Philip Goodhart, The Hunt for Kimathi (Garden

City, NY: Doubleday, 1958), 29.

N ot e s 189

59. Henderson, The Hunt for Kimathi, 17.60. Henderson, The Hunt for Kimathi, 18.61. Henderson, The Hunt for Kimathi, 24.62. Henderson, The Hunt for Kimathi, 24.63. Henderson, The Hunt for Kimathi, 24.64. Henderson, The Hunt for Kimathi, 32–4.65. Kenneth Watene, Dedan Kimathi (Nairobi: Transafrica Press, 1974),

63. Subsequent references to this text will be included parentheticallyin the body of my text.

66. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington(New York: Grove Press, 1963), 225.

67. Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Githae Mugo, The Trial of DedanKimathi (London: Heinemann, 1976), 3. Subsequent references willbe included parenthetically in the body of my text.

68. Brown, “Revolution and Recidivism,” 59.69. Brown, “Revolution and Recidivism,” 71.70. Brian Crow, “Melodrama and the Political Unconscious in Two

African Plays,” Ariel 14.3 (July 1983), 25.71. Crow, “Melodrama,” 15.72. Crow, “Melodrama,” 15.73. Crow, “Melodrama,” 15.74. Crow, “Melodrama,” 25.75. Crow, “Melodrama,” 25.76. Crow, “Melodrama,” 25.77. Crow, “Melodrama,” 25–6.78. Crow, “Melodrama,” 30.79. Crow, “Melodrama,” 30.80. Crow, “Melodrama,” 30–1.81. Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii, I Will Marry When I Want

(London: Heinemann, 1982), 11. Subsequent references to this textwill be included parenthetically in the body of my text.

82. Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 71.83. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 223.84. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 223.

Conclusion

1. Cheikh Hamidou Kane, “The African Writer and His Public,” AfricanWriters on African Writing, ed. G. D. Killam (Evanston, IL: North-western University Press, 1973), 53.

2. Kane, “The African Writer,” 53.3. Kane, “The African Writer,” 58.4. Kane, “The African Writer,” 58.5. Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philoso-

phy of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 147.

190 N ot e s

6. Appiah, In My Father’s House, 148.7. Appiah, In My Father’s House, 149.8. Appiah, In My Father’s House, 149.9. Appiah, In My Father’s House, 149.

10. Appiah, In My Father’s House, 149.11. Appiah, In My Father’s House, 149.12. Appiah, In My Father’s House, 149.13. Cheikh Hamidou Kane quoted in J. P. Little, “Autofiction and

Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s L’aventure Ambigue,” Research in AfricanLiteratures 31.2 (2000 Summer), 84–5.

14. Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguous Adventure, trans. KatherineWoods (Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books, 1994), 150–1. Sub-sequent references to this edition will be included parenthetically inthe body of my text.

15. Kane quoted in Little, “Autofiction,” 75.16. For an earlier discussion of the place of the beleaguered precolo-

nial aristocracy in Ambiguous Adventure, see John Conteh-Morgan,“Beyond Race: Class Conflict and Tragic Vision in an African Novel,”Race and Class 19.2 (1987), 17–23.

17. Samba Gadjigo, “Literature and History: The Case of Cheikh Hami-dou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure,” Research in African Literatures22.4 (Winter 1991), 30.

18. Gadjigo, “Literature and History,” 36.19. David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlight-

enment (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 47.20. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies (Durham: Duke University Press,

1993), 23–7.21. Gadjigo, “Literature and History,” 36.22. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. Fritz C. A.

Koelln and James P. Pettegrove (Boston: Beacon Press, 1951), 159.23. For more detailed discussions of the Islamic context of Ambiguous

Adventure, see Lemuel A. Johnson, “Crescent and Consciousness:Islamic Orthodoxies and the West African Novel,” 239–61, and Ken-neth W. Harrow, “Camara Laye, Cheikh Hamdiou Kane and TayibSalib: Three Sufi Authors,” 262–97, both in Faces of Islam in AfricanLiterature, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,1991).

B i b l i o g r a p h y

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I n d e x

Achebe, C., 5, 16, 17, 81aesthetic ideology, 70, 110–111,

113, 144, 160African

art, 14drama, 23theater, 36, 124–5university, 4, 11, 14, 15–17,

101, 162African American, also

Afro-American, 5, 10, 26Africanness, 4, 11–12, 20Afrocentrism, 4, 9, 12, 20,

71–2, 79, 80, 92, 98, 113,159, 161

Afrocentric curriculum, 72, 87–8Afrocentric pedagogy, 71, 90–2

Afro-citizenship, 12Ajayi, J. F. A., 15, 21allegory, 29–30, 36, 65, 162

in Ambiguous Adventure, 165–6,169, 174, 177

in Devil on the Cross, 93–4, 97, 99in Petals of Blood, 69, 89–90in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi,

145–6, 150Alliance High School, 62, 87ambiguity, 22, 25

in Ambiguous Adventure, 159–61,169, 172, 176

in Dedan Kimathi, 121, 135in Petals of Blood, 79, 87in The River Between, 30–1, 33–4,

36, 43–4in Weep Not, Child, 62–3, 65

Americanculture, 8literature, 26

Anderson, B., 81–3imagined communities, 57, 59–61

Anderson, D., 114Anglocentrism, 4, 17–18Anglophone, 25anticolonial nationalism, 13–14, 20,

22–4, 30, 118, 131in Ambiguous Adventure, 160,

162–3, 165–7, 177–8antiquity

Greece, Egypt and Rome, 80–2Appiah, K. A., 3, 106

neotraditionalism, 161–3Apter, A., 111–12aristocracy, 25, 32, 34

in Ambiguous Adventure, 163–5,167–70, 174, 176–7

Arnold, M., 5, 9, 17, 111atavistic violence, 115, 119,

127, 140avant-garde, 18, 163Aztec civilization, 20

Balogun, F. O., 104–5Bhabha, H. K., 34

colonial stereotypes, 126–7biculturalism, 40–2black

aesthetic, 10, 12, 144civilization, 112culture, 111diaspora, 145history, 70, 73–4, 91, 144

198 I n d e x

Black United Nations, 112Boehmer, E., 100Bourdieu, P., 1bourgeois, 60, 68, 72, 93, 101, 103,

151, 162Brecht, B., 149British

colonialism, 6, 30, 48, 54, 83,116, 120, 124, 128, 135–6,141, 143

literature, 13, 26school culture, 72university, 162

Brown, N., 113, 149–51

Calder, A., 10canon, 4–5, 7, 13, 16–18, 22, 26,

70, 88, 92, 106, 125–6, 172high canonical, 13, 16–17, 22–4,

86, 110, 161, 163capitalism, 29, 68, 70, 73, 76,

84, 94anticapitalist, 71, 98, 145

Carey, F., 87Caribbean

culture, 7–8literatures, 7, 10

Carothers, J. C., 127–9Cary, J., 18Cassirer, E., 172Chakava, H., 102Christianity, 29, 81, 127, 129–30

in Ambiguous Adventure,172–3, 176

in Dedan Kimathi, 120, 136,138, 141

in I Will Marry When I Want,155–6

in Petals of Blood, 72, 90in The River Between, 30, 33–6,

39–42, 45–7in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi,

147–8in Weep Not, Child, 52, 54, 57–8

circumcision, 130

civilizing mission, 33–40, 172–3civil war, see Mau Mau RebellionClark-Bekederemo, J. P., 16–19clitoridectomy

in The River Between, 39–42, 45Cohen, D. W., 114–15, 117colonial

apologia, 58, 62, 116, 122,126–7, 135

conquest, 13, 32, 37–8, 49, 52,55, 116, 163, 167–8,171–3, 176

discourse, 5, 40, 83, 119,121, 127

Kenya, 30, 48, 55–7, 60–2,128–9, 142–7, 149, 155

memoir, see Henderson, I.,modernity, 48, 74, 172school, 22, 30, 39, 43, 49, 52–4,

58, 63, 66, 70; in AmbiguousAdventure, 161, 163–4,167–8, 170–7

stereotypes, 3, 119, 125–6,130–1, 134, 169; see alsoBhabha, Homi K.,

Conrad, J., 18Cook, D., 92Corfield, F. D., 127–9cosmopolitanism, 12, 19Crow, B.,

melodrama, 150–2cult of personality, 139cultural

authenticity, 153, 156, 177hybridity, 40–1nationalism, 5, 10, 16, 20, 22, 30,

96, 98cultural capital, 10, 101

see also Guillory, J.,curriculum, 6, 8, 10, 14, 17–18, 72,

84, 87–8, 90–1

Daily Nation, 123Declaration of Independence

(US), 81

I n d e x 199

decolonization, 13, 20, 69, 160Department of English, see English,

departmentDimock, W. C., 26–7

East African Standard, 103,123, 125

Eliot, T. S., 18English

culture, 5, 8–9department, 4–13, 17

memo “On the Abolition ofthe English Department”,4–6, 8, 10, 70

hegemony, 13, 103–4, 107,122–3

literature, 4–27school, 7–8, 51, 54, 58, 88, 102,

104, 122–3Englishness, 4–5, 9, 13, 17, 51, 54,

58, 99, 101–2ethnic identities, 11, 60, 79, 83, 111ethnocentrism, 9, 12

African, 18British, 7English, 18

ethnophilosophy, see Hountondji, P.,Eurocentrism, 8, 17–18European

culture, 29, 43, 123, 178literature, 9, 12modernity, 39, 172school, 61

Europeanness, 12

Fagunwa, D., 104fallacy, 5, 11

imitative, 5intentional, 5

Fanon, F., 72, 157crisis of “native intellectual”, 20–2national culture, 143

Festac (Second World Black andAfrican Festival of Arts andCulture), 24, 111–13, 118, 144

Kenyan National Secretariat forFestac ’77, 118

fetish, 51, 54–5, 58, 107Foucault, M.,

disciplinary power, 39eventualization, 104

Franco, J., 36francophone, 25French, 3, 6, 81–2, 122, 163–4, 170

colonialism, 3, 25, 167–8, 172education, 25, 130, 162, 164,

175–7literature, 12Revolution, 82

Friere, P., 71

Gadjigo, S., 168–70gender politics, 46–7, 51, 64, 68,

90, 99, 107, 139, 175see also sexual politics

gerontocracy, 74, 175Gikandi, S., 2–3, 8, 13–14, 23, 30,

36, 40, 42–3, 48, 72–3, 99,100, 103, 106, 110, 156

Gikuyu culture, 83schizophrenic novel, 92–3, 106

Gikuyu, 22, 30, 32–9, 41–2, 45,49–55, 75, 79, 83, 92, 97,102–3, 113, 119–21, 127–9,136, 141, 153

culture, 29, 36, 38, 41, 48, 83folktales/folklore, 92–4, 101language, 99, 101–7, 110,

113, 153nationalism, 30, 51origins, 34sacral ontology, 36, 38, 42, 74–5

God, 34, 43, 50, 63, 69, 79, 87of Africa, 79Christian, 41, 63; see also

ChristianityGoma, L. K. H., 15, 21Greene, G., 18Guardian, 122

200 I n d e x

Guillory, J., 1, 5, 14, 23, 55cultural capital, 10, 101–2imaginary politics, 98,

121–2, 124pedagogical imaginary, 8

Haiti Revolution, 2–3Henderson, I., 119–20, 124–7,

129–31, 133, 140–1, 151heterosexual, 36, 65, 89, 98high canonical, see canonhigh culture, 9, 99, 103, 106, 111,

113, 122, 162historiography, 70–1, 78, 80, 84–5,

114, 117homogenous empty time, 19,

57, 82see also Anderson, B.,

horizontal comradeship, 59–60The Horn, 19Hountondji, P.,

ethnophilosophy, 11–12hubris, 30, 35, 52, 98, 130

ideological palingenesis, 168imaginary politics, 98–9, 121–2, 152

see also Guillory, J.,imperialism, 3, 80, 82, 84, 88, 99,

122–6, 141–5, 148, 150–1, 163Indian

in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi,146, 149

in Weep Not, Child, 49, 56–7, 66indigenous

language, see Gikuyu, languageschools, 35, 39, 63, 71

Indonesian nationalism, 60intellectual culture, 19–23, 76, 93,

159, 163, 166intellectual nativism, 25interracial encoutners, 50, 61–3Irele, F. A.,

postcolonial university, 17–20

irony (as literary device), 3,23–5, 79, 91, 133–4, 137,160–1

in Devil on the Cross, 92, 96–8in The River Between, 29–33,

35–6, 38, 41, 43, 46, 48in Weep Not, Child, 50, 52–3,

56–64, 66Islam, 25, 163–5, 168, 172–5, 177

Islamic library, 173Islamic revolution, 168Koranic school, 163–4, 166–8,

173–4, 176–7sacral ontology, 167, 177

James, C. L. R., 2Jameson, F.,

national allegories, 29–30, 69,162, 165, 174

Jeyifo, B., 4Johnson, G. A., 15, 21Joyce, J., 18Julien, E., 104–6

Kamiriithu Popular TheatreExperiment, 24, 92, 110, 113

Kane, C. H., 3, 16Ambiguous Adventure, 24–6,

159–78Kaunda, K.,

founding president of Zambia,15–16

Kenya Historical Association, 116Kenya Historical Review, 116Kenya National Theatre, 24,

109–13, 119, 123, 151Kenyatta, J., 53, 117Kiarie, K., 125Kikuyu, see GikuyuKillam, G. D., 53Kimathi, D., see Mau Mau

Rebellion

Lawrence, D. H., 18Leavis, F. R., 5, 13, 17–18

Leavisate tradition, 7–9

I n d e x 201

Leeds University, 72Leigh, I., 127Ley, C., 69literary

citizenship, 11culture, 19–20, 102–4, 162education, 5–7, 9, 16–18,

101nationalism, 1, 10, 20, 139pedagogy, 7, 18

lo Liyong, T., 4–5L’Ouverture, T., 2

magic, 51, 55, 73, 75, 100, 128magical realism, 73Malinowski, B., 43Manichean opposition, 40, 42margin, also periphery, 5, 9, 25, 52,

72, 74, 78, 99, 103, 113, 118,156, 168, 176–7

of text, 70–1, 154, 164, 168Marxism, 14, 54, 71, 74, 98, 116,

122, 156false consciousness, 155–6Marxist critique, 72, 152,

155, 159masculinity, 47, 52, 90, 99–100,

154, 175materialist critique, 14, 16,

20, 22Mau Mau Rebellion, 48–50, 65,

67, 70, 109, 113–22,124–30

in Dedan Kimathi, 130–42in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi,

143–5, 149–50Mazrui, A., 80messianism, 23, 25, 40, 44, 51–2,

58, 63, 66, 143–4Michaud, A.-P., 31militancy, 49, 54, 68–9, 88,

93, 124, 143, 145,147

mission school, 39, 47, 53missionary, 39–40, 57–8, 63

Mitchell, P., 84modernity, see colonialmodernization, 29, 75–6, 86,

92, 111, 128, 165, 172Mudimbe, V. Y., 3Mugo, M. G., 24, 110, 115–22,

125, 127, 131, 137, 140,143–4, 148, 150–3

Muriuki, G., 78, 80myth of origins, 30, 32–4, 50,

79–80, 83, 159of global black origins, 70of white origins, 56

mythos of Romance, 3, 22see also Scott, D.,

Nairobi Revolution, 4–5, 9–15,19, 23, 67, 70, 72, 89,93–4, 103

Nairobi troika, 4–10see also Ngugi wa Thiong’o; lo

Liyong, T.; HenryOwuor-Anyumba

national allegories, see allegorynational cultures, 5, 8–9, 12, 14,

16–17, 19–21, 23, 59, 69, 96,98, 109, 113, 123, 143,152–3, 163

see also Fanon, F.; Gikuyu,culture

nationalist romance, see romanceNazareth, P.,

three Ngugis theory, 71–3, 75Ndigirigi, G., 109–10, 113Negritude, 111neocolonialism, 86–8, 93–4, 98–9,

101, 112, 118, 142–3, 145,152, 163

neutralism, 35, 42, 45, 48, 52–3,55, 62, 64–5, 87

new poetic, 18Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 1, 4, 22, 153,

162, 180–189Nigerian literature in English,

17–19

202 I n d e x

Nigerian National Theatre, 112Nwapa, F., 16, 17

OAU [Organization of AfricanUnity], 112

Obasanjo, G. O., 112Ochieng’, William, 78, 80,

84–5Odhiambo, E. S. A., 116–17Ogot, A., 78, 80Ogude, J., 2, 44, 64–5, 70, 78,

89–90, 102, 107Okenimkpe, M., 92Oral

literature, 10–11, 102–7tradition, 11, 79–80, 104–6

Owuor-Anyumba, H., 4–5, 12

palimpsest, 74, 172parody (as literary device), 64patriarchal, 36, 40–1, 46, 50,

74, 90, 100, 154–6,175–6

peasant culture, 70–1, 76pedagogical imaginary, 8

see also Guillory, J.,philosophical discourse

in Ambiguouos Adventure, 165–8,171, 177

popular culture, 23, 106, 110,162–3

Portuguese, 12, 116postcolonial intellectual, 2, 8,

18, 20–5, 114, 119,131, 157

in Ambiguous Adventure, 159–63,165–7, 178

in Devil on the Cross, 93, 95,106–7

native intellectual, 20–1, 107,143, 157; see also Fanon, F.,

in Petals of Blood, 67, 69, 79, 86in The River Between, 30–1, 35

postcolonial modernity, 14, 16, 74

postcolonial revolution, 2–5, 18,22–3, 35, 88, 94–5,141, 143

see also Nairobi Revolutionpostcolonial university, 5, 9–23, 68,

70, 78, 84, 86–7, 98see also Irele, F. A.,

precolonial tradition, 20–2, 31,35–6, 38, 48, 80, 84, 96, 162,172–3

President Moi, 122primitiveness, 29, 85, 128–30prophecy, 71, 79, 105, 130, 134

prophetic discourse, 37, 40,50, 52

in The River Between, 33–4, 37–8,42–3

in Weep Not, Child, 50–2, 54,58, 63

quest, romantic, 3, 30, 35, 40, 65,88, 98, 120, 169–71, 177

racial identities, 11, 22, 69, 71,82–5, 150–82

racially segregation, 57–62, 144realist novel, 73, 78, 101, 105Renaissance literature, 17, 26Renison, Sir P., 128Richards, I. A., 18Rodney, W., 85romance, 2–4, 7, 22, 121

in Ambiguous Adventure, 159–61,163, 165–71

in Dedan Kimathi, 131–2, 134,137, 141

in Devil on the Cross, 92–3,95–101

in Petals of Blood, 70, 74, 77–9,87–91

in The River Between, 29–33,35–6, 40, 42, 44, 46–7

roman à clef, 166in Weep Not, Child, 48–50, 59,

62, 64–6

I n d e x 203

satire (as literary device), 44, 50,58, 169

savior, 25, 79, 163in The River Between, 33, 35,

38–9, 42–7in Weep Not, Child, 49, 51, 58,

64, 66school culture, 1, 5, 11–12, 16,

22–5, 30, 47, 54, 67, 69–72,78, 86, 90, 92–3, 95, 98–9,102–4, 110, 119–20, 122, 154,159, 161–3, 166

Scott, D.,drama of ‘diremption’, 169romance, 2–3, 22, 160, 169

Second World War, 54, 57secularism, 38, 72, 74

in Ambiguous Adventure, 164,172–5

Sedgwick, E. K., 169Sekyi-Otu, A., 62

on The River Between, 30–1,33–5, 43–5, 47

Senegalese literature, 25–6sexual politics, 64, 89, 93, 125–6,

139–40see also gender politics

Ship of Fools, 93, 106Sicherman, C., 2, 4Siriana Mission Center

in Petals of Blood, 67–8, 70–1,87–8, 91

in The River Between, 39–40,43–4, 47

in Weep Not, Child, 49, 57–64, 66see also mission school

social change, 43–4, 84, 91,156, 158

see also Malinowski, B.,social justice, 67, 114, 117Sommer, D., 36Songhai civilization, 21sovereignty, 26, 173–4Soyinka, W., 3, 16–17

state of emergency, 48–9, 52–3, 62,64, 135, 145, 155

Stewart, J., 6–9Stratton, F., 89–90Sufism, 173Swahili language and literature, 6,

103, 121

terrorism, 49, 53Mau Mau, 127, 129–30,

133, 149white, 59, 64

Third World, 29–30, 162tragedy (as literary device), 3, 23–4,

29, 86, 119, 120–1aesthetic of, 40, 119–21, 131in Ambiguous Adventure, 160,

163, 165, 170in Dedan Kimathi, 131–7, 139,

141–2in The River Between, 30–1, 33–6,

38, 40–2, 44, 46in Weep Not, Child, 48–9, 52, 58,

63–6tragic hero, 23–4, 63, 98

Kimathi, 120–1, 131–4, 150Waiyaki, 30, 35–6, 41, 44

tragic romance, 29–30, 35, 46, 65,92, 98

tribal, 35–6, 39, 41, 63, 126,129–30

origins, 32–4, 50

University College, Ibadan, 16University of Nairobi, 4–6, 9, 23,

69, 71, 78, 84, 85, 96,110, 144

University of Zambia, 15utopia, 26, 63, 69–70, 83, 87, 150

Victorian literature, 26

wa Manje, K., 124–5, 134wa Mirii, N., 110Watene, K., 118–21, 125–7, 131–2,

134–8

204 I n d e x

Were, S. G., 78, 80West, 6–8, 12, 19, 27, 37, 82, 104,

123–4, 162–5, 177Western civilization, 6–8, 128Western culture, 12, 21, 157Western education, 38–9, 44,

53–4, 161, 166, 176Western tradition, 8, 11, 82

white settlers, 120, 136, 138in The River Between, 30, 45in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi,

145, 148, 151in Weep Not, Child, 49–51, 53–5,

61–2Williams, P., 2, 98Woolf, V., 18