East and Central Africa

Abstract

Introduction

As part of its Contemporary Conversations Series, the Journal of African Cultural Studies features an important set of reflections around the question: “is English an African Language?”. The three respondents — Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Biodun Jeyifo and John Mugane [see Criticism: General Studies: Regional] — offer generative reflections on what emerges as African speakers’ deeply complicated linguistic and cultural encounter with English. They have experienced it both as a traumatising vehicle of oppression and as a language they have successfully wrestled with and domesticated, even made their own. While Mugane, Ngugi and Jeyifo’s perspectives differ sharply, they are nonetheless a reminder of Africans’ unfinished business with English; and their refusal to surrender to a neat view of the language as either African or not. In practice, English finds itself in a dynamic relationship to its African speakers and writers. Still on the question of language and imagination, two entries on the East African patois Sheng, by Chege Githiora — Sheng: Rise of a Kenyan Swahili Vernacular and “Sheng: the Expanding Domains of an Urban Youth Vernacular” [see Criticism: General Studies: Kenya] — mark an important intervention in East African literary studies in light of the centrality of Sheng as a language of creativity and imaginative expression. Although Sheng — a Kenyan blend of Kiswahili, English and indigenous languages primarily spoken by urban youth — has been spoken for decades, a narrow academic imagination and a general fetishization of formal English and Kiswahili has denied Sheng and, by extension, Sheng literary production, much-needed scholarly attention. In a similar vein, a third title that reads well with this cluster grappling with questions of language in African literary imagination is Tanzanian scholar Michael Andindilile’s The Anglophone Literary-Linguistic Continuum: English and Indigenous Languages in African Literary Discourse [see Criticism: General Studies: Regional]. Through a reading of the work of Nadine Gordimer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Nurrudin Farah and Chinua Achebe, Andindilile revisits the language debate in African writing. With a keen eye for the ways in which the different writers embed distinctively African cultural, linguistic and epistemic ideas and practices in their English-language fiction, he argues that they have created what he describes as a literary-linguistic continuum between the two cultural worlds. With the continued centrality of debates on the decolonization of the academy, knowledge production and questions of epistemic justice in Africa, the language question is inevitably central to these debates. This set of titles is invaluable in deepening such debates.

Over the years, Kenyan public discourse has debated first President Jomo Kenyatta’s political biography as a contradictory figure turned into a mythical hero following his arrest under British colonial rule, but a hero who would swiftly embrace the violent machinery of statecraft soon after ascending to power. One Kenyan writer whose work and life has tracked Kenyatta’s contradictory choices is Ngugi wa Thiong’o. On this year’s list, Gĩchingiri Ndĩgĩrĩgĩ meditates on the shifting, largely ambiguous portrait of Kenyatta in Kenyan writing, in the essay “Mythical hero or tragic failure? An Interrogation of the Jomo Kenyatta ‘black people’s Moses’ Mystique in Two Kenyan Patriographies” [see Criticism: General Studies: Kenya]. Ndĩgĩrĩgĩ’s essay is a long-overdue sustained engagement with the mythologisation of Kenyatta both in Kenyan public life and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s early writing, paired with an equally candid exploration of Kenyatta’s violent gerontocracy that is often overshadowed in Kenyan public memory by his successor’s Daniel arap Moi’s autocracy. This is in part because the latter was in power for more than two decades and his heavy-handed leadership was widely reported on and protested against. Ndĩgĩrĩgĩ’s essay pairs well with a number of other entries on the list that examine the lives and choices of political figures in the region as well as fictional treatments of these figures. Wanyubari Maloba’s book-length examination of Kenyatta’s interactions with Britain in Kenyatta and Britain: An Account of Political Transformation, 1929–1963 [see Criticism: General Studies: Kenya] is bound to be influential in future explorations of nationalist and anti-colonial Kenyan writing that was central to the mythologisation of Kenyatta as what was popularly termed Black Moses. Equally, Stephen Muthoka Mutie’s “Self-mythologization in East African Political Writings: Kenyatta, Nyerere and Museveni” and Deborah Nyangulu’s “Big Men and Performances of Sovereignty in Contemporary African Novels” both examine literary portraits of political figures or what is popularly known as “big men”, as signalled in Nyangulu’s title. Elsewhere, John Wakota’s Ujamaa’sVillagization and Gender Dynamics in Selected Tanzanian Fiction” [see Criticism: General Studies: Tanzania] considers the contradictory stances on equality as articulated in Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa political philosophy in Tanzania. Wakota demonstrates that while Ujamaa officially articulated a rhetoric of human equality, this equality was insufficiently attentive to the multifaceted nature of identity and particularly gendered power relations, resulting in the contradictory promotion of equality and patriarchal logics apace.

There is, by now, an extensive body of biographical narratives and writings about the celebrated primatologist Jane Goodall’s work in Tanzania. In The Ghosts of Gombe: A True Story of Love and Death in an African Wilderness [see Tanzania: Auto/biography], Dale Peterson revisits Goodall’s work, but with an unusual focus: the 1969 death of one of the young volunteers who were conducting animal behaviour research at Gombe Stream National Park, Ruth Davis. Davis was a young American volunteer, who reportedly followed a chimpanzee into the forest and went missing for six days, before her body was found at the base of a waterfall. In this biographical project that builds on an earlier definitive biography of Jane Goodall, Dale Peterson produces a literary forensics project that blends together history, science and narrative to depict the impact of the tragedy on the research team at Gombe, with provocative insights into the interactions between the team and the chimpanzees they studied at Gombe.

Still on biographical narratives at key historical moments, this year’s list features two memoirs by diplomatic figures that reflect on their lives and work in Eastern Africa during key historical moments. In the first, Prudence Bushnell examines the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania during her term as US ambassador to Kenya. Bushnell has had a dramatic diplomatic career in Africa. Prior to the ambassadorial posting, she had served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in 1993 and 1994. This period coincided with the humiliation of US troops in Somalia in October 1993, when they attempted to capture Somali military leader Mohammed Farrah Aidid. On the back of this humiliation, a few months later, in April 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira were killed when their plane was shot down in Kigali. Having noted the tensions following a recent visit to the country and discussions with local political leaders in an attempt to broker a peaceful transitional government, Bushnell appealed for US intervention in the region, predicting that the violence could easily escalate given how volatile the situation on the ground was. However, the US appeared reluctant to intervene, possibly with the Somali debacle too fresh in public memory. Instead, the US opted to withdraw all American citizens and personnel from Rwanda as the genocide unfolded. Interestingly, Bushnell’s memoir focuses not on Rwanda, but on her subsequent service as ambassador to Kenya, during which period the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam US embassies were bombed by Al-Qaeda. Preceding the 9/11 attacks, these bombings received fairly low-level responses; even though they pointed towards gaps in US and global understandings of the workings of the terrorist movement at the time. Bushnell’s memoir gestures at yet another set of failings of US foreign policy responsiveness to security threats on the ground at the time. A second diplomat’s memoir is Canadian Gerry Helleiner’s Toward a Better World: Memoirs of a Life in International and Development Economics (see Auto/biography: Regional). Although less spectacular in its focus than Bushnell’s, Hellenier’s memoir provides a glimpse into a range of development agencies and the development infrastructure that continues to have immense hold over African economies as well as the policy decisions that shape this infrastructure. Helleneir takes readers on a fascinating journey with different organisations and their economic policy directions, lending researchers important insights into particular socio-economic moments in the histories of Uganda and Tanzania as seen through the eyes of a Development economist. These two memoirs further raise interesting questions for literary scholars of life writing with regard to the interactions between biographical narrative forms and the themes of diplomatic life and service.

On the heels of the growing library of life writing that grapples with the implications of instability in the Great Lakes region, there is a budding body of writing by an intra-African diaspora, primarily communities that settled in neighbouring East African countries. H. Rubagumya’s A Son of Two Countries: The Education of a Refugee from Nyarubuye (see Auto/biography: Tanzania) is one such title which reflects on the author’s intellectual biography as a Rwandan refugee compelled to seek refuge in neighbouring Tanzania and settling down to an academic career in education in Tanzania. Titles such as Rubagumya’s serve as key literary archives that mobilize biographical narrative to record, critique and think through particular socio-historical moments in regional histories of mobility, displacement and the ongoing quest for home.

Also in Tanzania, a subject that has attracted significant scholarly attention in recent years is the targeted killing of people with albinism, primarily in East, Central and Southern Africa. This phenomenon is gradually attracting literary commentary through fiction. On this year’s list, this interest is represented by Mario Bolduc’s The Tanzanian Conspiracy (see Fiction: Tanzania). This murder mystery is in conversation with the horrific phenomenon of human trafficking targeting persons with albinism and the broader questions of the occult and human rights that this phenomenon raises.

In 2018, Kenyan writer Makena Onjerika won the Caine Prize for African writing for her short story, “Fanta Blackcurrant” published in Wasafiri in 2017. Onjerika’s story is set on the streets of Nairobi and zooms in on a group of street children’s survival strategies and inter-personal tensions in a register that translates the children’s tones and modes of engagement into English, without losing the particularity of their language. The fourth Kenyan to win the award, after Binyavanga Wainaina, Yvonne Owuor and Okwiri Oduor, Onjerika is reportedly busy with a fantasy novel. At the same time, Kenya was in the spotlight in 2018, in relation to another Caine Prize winning story, “Jambula Tree,” a love story between two young women, by Ugandan writer Monica Arac de Nyeko. Kenyan filmmaker, Wanuri Kahiu adapted the short story into a film titled Rafiki (friend); but the film was immediately banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board which essentially criminalised it for what they termed “its clear intent to promote lesbianism in Kenya, contrary to the law.”¹ Rafiki, the first Kenyan film to be screened at Cannes as part of the festival’s official line-up, received widespread publicity following this banning, especially coming on the back of the South African film, Inxeba, which had stirred controversy and sharp public responses for its exploration of queer desire in the context of Xhosa initiation schools, conventionally aligned with heteronormative masculinities. Still, the body of queer writing and queer studies scholarship in East Africa continues to grow, despite criminalisation of queer desire across the region. On this year’s list, alongside “Jambula Tree”, short stories by Lily Mabura, Beatrice Lamwaka, Juliet Kushaba and H. W. Mukami appear in the anthology Queer Africa: Selected Stories edited by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin (see Anthologies: Regional).

The best-known author in the region, Ngugi wa Thiong’o turned 80 in 2018 and marked this milestone with the publication of his latest memoir Wrestling with the Devil: A Memoir (see Auto/Biography: Kenya). The devil of the title nods to his earlier novel, Devil on the Cross, published in 1980 and written during his imprisonment in 1978. The nod is deliberate, as this memoir revisits his prison experience, previously explored in Detained: A Prisoner’s Diary (1981). In Wrestling with the Devil, Ngugi wa Thiong’o revisits the process of writing Devil on the Cross in prison as a springboard for an exploration of political imprisonment and the power of art, imagination and storytelling as both weapons of analysis and strategies of refusal in the face of the autocrat, here figured in the metaphor of the devil. While readers familiar with Detained might notice significant overlaps in detail, this memoir is nonetheless an important resource for scholars of prison literature and life writing and, importantly, for literary historians with an interest in tracing the author’s intellectual history and shifting or recurrent concerns and ideas in his corpus. Ultimately, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s interest in questions of freedom and resistance against autocracies remains as urgent as it was when he collaborated with Ngugi wa Mirii and the Kamiriithu community in the production of the play Ngahiika Ndeeda (I will marry when I want) whose popular reception and potential for consciousness raising precipitated Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s detention.

To mark Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s 80^th birthday, Simon Gikandi and Ndirangu Wachanga edited the volume Ngũgĩ: Reflections on His Life of Writing (see Studies on Individual Writers); an excellent research resource for Ngugi scholars, literary historians and general readers alike. Bringing together critical essays both new and previously published, personal tributes and reflections on encounters with Ngugi wa Thiong’o and his writing, this is a beautiful volume whose very range of voices across different generations and geopolitical locations is emblematic of the appeal of the man and his work. Included are his essays, poetry and speeches in Gikuyu and Kiswahili as well as moving accounts by his publishers, Henry Chakava and James Currey, and an evocative walk down memory lane by Sultan Somjee on witnessing the production of the afore mentioned Ngahiika Ndeeda in 1977 with the Kamiriithu community. This collection is an invaluable book that tells more than the story of Ngugi; it is ultimately the story of a segment of time in East African letters as indexed through one writer’s life and work across three generations and three continents.

An exciting new title on East African literary scholarship is Russell West-Pavlov’s Eastern African Literatures: Towards an Aesthetics of Proximity (see Criticism: General Studies: Regional). West-Pavlov examines East African writing across just over half a century, from the 1950s to the first decade of the new millennium. Framed around three sections — territory, history, community — the study theorizes what West-Pavlov terms the aesthetics of proximity, a paradigm that holds together a range of East African writing. West-Pavlov considers the centrality of proximity to be rooted in the persistence of orality, even at the height of the realist novel’s hegemony in East African letters and defined by four features:

it activates a mode of semiosis whose functioning is primarily somatic; [it] functions according to a dynamic or economy of “affect”; its condition of possibility is that of spatial continuity; and that contiguity defines the mode of agency it makes possible. (5)

West-Pavlov’s exploration situates East African writing firmly at the centre of the affective turn in literary criticism and promises to pave the way for significant shifts in scholarship on this region’s writing.

At the time of putting this essay together, Renee Bach, a young American missionary was being sued by a group of Ugandan parents for having misrepresented herself as a medical doctor in Uganda and running a home-based medical facility that led to the death of over 100 children between 2008 and 2015. Bach, who had no medical qualifications, reportedly pretended to be a doctor and conducted medical procedures on many children, some of whom she removed from Ugandan medical facilities to her “centre” for treatment. Renee Bach’s case is indirectly mirrored by another curious case of a trained medical doctor, Anne Spoerry. The writer and documentary filmmaker John Heminway set out to do a biography of French-born Dr Anne Spoerry, initially drawn to her unusual story as a swiss heiress who chose to join the flying doctors and provide medical care to poor rural communities in remote parts of Kenya. In the process of working on the biography, he noted the doctor’s reluctance to talk about her early life and particularly the Second World War period, but he put it down to the traumas of the war. The doctor died in 1999 at the age of 80 and received a warm send off from ordinary Kenyans and the medical community alike, in celebration of close to five decades of committed, life-saving medical care. However, as Heminway continued his research, he unearthed a carefully suppressed earlier life: the doctor who had given a good portion of her life to saving the lives of the poor in Kenya, had reportedly served as a doctor at a Nazi camp and possibly participated in torturing and administering lethal injections to Jewish prisoners. At the same time, once her boss was reassigned and left the camp, Spoerry switched character and reportedly saved the lives of some Jewish prisoners destined for the gas chamber. Heminway’s In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement (see Auto/biography: Kenya) is more than a fascinating story of a doctor with a dark secret. It raises larger questions about atonement, moral choice and, inevitably, the availability of precarious communities for different projects, be they harmful as in the case of Renee Bach or redemptive and lifesaving as in the case of Dr Spoerry. Along related lines, Laura Edmonson’s Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire (see Criticism: General Studies: Uganda) looks at the landscapes of trauma in Rwanda and Northern Uganda and the place of drama and performative genres as vehicles of healing. At the same time, Edmonson’s study explores trauma tourism and the dynamics of branding and commodification of traumatic experiences and sites for tourist consumption.

While 2018 appears to have been a quantitatively thin year in the region’s publishing output in comparison to more abundant years in the past, the range of material remains thought-provoking, in keeping with the region’s dynamic scholarly and creative scene.

Footnotes

Notes

References

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Mhango, Nkwazi Nkuzi Kudos to President Magufuli 92pp Tanzania Educational Publishers (Bukoba).

Likongwe, Smith Living Playscripts: A Trilogy 184pp Chancellor College Travelling Theatre (Zomba, Malawi).

Likongwe, Smith ed The Chief’s Blanket and Other Plays 155pp Chancellor College Travelling Theatre (Zomba, Malawi).

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10.

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11.

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12.

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13.

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14.

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15.

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16.

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17.

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18.

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19.

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30.

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36.

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37.

Helleiner, Gerry Toward a Better World: Memoirs of a Life in International and Development Economics 328pp Univ of Toronto Press (Toronto).

38.

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39.

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40.

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41.

Durrani Shiraz ed Pio Gama Pinto: Kenya’s Unsung Martyr: 1927–1965 391pp Vita Books (Nairobi).

42.

Elliott, Denielle Stories of Medical Science and Statecraft in Kenya: Curating Impossible Stories 223pp Routledge (Milton).

43.

Fankhouser, Kris Wangari Muta Maathai 96pp World Book Inc (Chigago).

44.

Mutai, Kiogora and Bertha Kaimenyi Stephen Mutai Imanyara: Growing Green Gold: The Legacy of a Tea Industry Captain 309pp Big Books (Nairobi).

45.

Neill, Ted Two Years of Wonder 264pp Create Space (North Charleston, SC).

46.

Rothmyer, Karen Joseph Murumbi: A Legacy of Integrity194pp Zand Graphics (Nairobi).

47.

Vidyarthi, Shravan and Erin Haney eds Priya Ramrakha: The Recovered Archive 200pp Heidelberg (Kehrer).

48.

Wane, Njoki Nathani From My Mother’s Back: A Journey from Kenya to Canada 175pp Wolsak and Wynn Publishers (Ontario).

49.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi Wrestling with the Devil: A Memoir 248pp The New Press (New York).

50.

Akwong, Auma Hellen The Journey of Grace 68pp The Goal Initiative Foundation (Kampala).

51.

Akwong, Auma Hellen The Scar: Surviving a Life Sentence 84pp The Goal Initiative Foundation (Kampala).

52.

Aliker Martin, David Gibbs and Hugh Macmillan The Bell Is Ringing: Martin Aliker’s Story 251pp Fountain Publishers (Kampala).

53.

Bridges, Roy ed A Walk across Africa: J. A. Grant’s Account of the Nile Expedition of 1860-1863 411pp Routledge (New York).

54.

Dubal, Sam Against Humanity: Lessons from the Lord’s Resistance Army 274pp University of California Press (Oakland).

55.

Jalmeo, Obed Obedgiu Kwokuboth Hakuna mchezo: The Dictator Awakened 55pp Penwall Media Ltd (Kampala).

56.

Kajinja, Douglas Rukaari The Soldier with Many Hats: John Kajinja 64pp Douglas Rukaari Kajinja (Kampala).

57.

Komkech, Pius Kilama The Dawn of Time 152pp Pius Komkech Oseke (Gulu).

58.

Kyazze, Jones Yosiya Thirty-six Years Later: A Unique Love Story by Her 150pp Jones Yosiya Kyazze (Kampala).

59.

Mugerwa, Kisamba A Focused Journey: A Tale of Courageous Strides 226pp TFK Publishers (Kampala).

60.

Mugerwa, Kisamba Luweero Triangle in the Limelight 138pp Kisamba Mugerwa (Kampala).

61.

Nuwagaba, Isaac Forgotten King of Nkore 94pp Batembuzi Group (Rwampara).

62.

Sempa, Mutume Robert Kizza Besigye: Could He Be a Moses or David? 160pp MTB Foundation (Kampala).

63.

Sempala, Eddie Uganda God’s Generals: The Transformers 446pp Eddie Sempala (Kampala).

64.

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65.

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66.

Hirji, Karim The Travails of a Tanzanian Teacher 227pp Daraja Press (Montreal).

67.

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68.

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69.

Peterson, Dale The Ghosts of Gombe: A True Story of Love and Death in an African Wilderness 222pp University of California Press (Oakland, California).

70.

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71.

Torgeby, Markus The Runner: Four Years Living and Running in the Wilderness 193pp Blooomsbury (London).

72.

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73.

Banda, Harvey C. Migration from Malawi to South Africa: A Historical and Cultural Novel: Real-life Experiences 152pp Langaa Research & Publishing CIG (Mankon, Cameroon).

74.

Chakanza, Chaphadzika Voices of Preachers in Protest: The Ministry of Two Malawian Prophets: Elliot Kamwana and Wilfred Gudu 109pp Luviri Press (Mzuzu, Malawi).

75.

Paas, Steven Johannes Rebmann: A Servant of God in Africa before the Rise of Western Colonialism 333pp Wipf and Stock (Eugene, OR).

76.

Caine Prize Redemption Song and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2018 Interlink Books (Northampton, MA).

77.

Kahyana, Danson ed Fire on the Mountain: Creative Work on the Obuhikira Dovesong Educational Publishers (Kampala).

78.

Mwanaka Tendai Rinos and Ricardo Felix Rodriguez eds Writing Grandmothers: Africa vs. Latin America n.pag. Mwanaka Media and Publishing (Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe).

79.

Xaba, Makhosazana and Karen Martin eds Queer Africa: Selected Stories 264pp New Internationalist Publications (Oxford).

80.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi Secret Lives and Other Stories 156pp Vintage Classics (London).

81.

Mwingira, Margaret and Robert Botne Mpoto Fables and Folktales 121pp Rudger Koppe Verlag (Koln).

82.

Banda, Tito Old Nyaviyuyi in Performance: Seven Tales from Northern Malawi as Told by a Master Performer of the Oral Narrative Project Muse and Mzuni Press (Baltimore, MA; Mzuzu, Malawi).

83.

Mvona, Sambalikagwa and Temwani Mgunda eds A Grafted Tree and Other Stories: An Anthology of Women Writers in Malawi 150pp Malawi Writers Union (Blantyre, Malawi).

84.

African Youth Languages: New Media, Performing Arts and Sociolinguistic Development eds Ellen Hurst-Harosh, Fridah Kanana Erastus 255pp Palgrave Macmillan (Cham, Switzerland).

85.

The Anglophone Literary-Linguistic Continuum: English and Indigenous Languages in African Literary Discourse Michael Andindilile 152pp NISC (Grahamstown, South Africa).

86.

“Big Men and Performances of Sovereignty in Contemporary African Novels” Deborah Nyangulu Research in African Literatures 49(3) pp101–15.

87.

Children of Ham: Freed Slaves and Fugitive Slaves on the Kenya Coast, 1873 to 1907 Fred Morton 272pp Routledge (London) [2008].

88.

“Contemporary Conversations: Is English an African Language?” John Mugane Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(2) pp121–123.

89.

Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era Is Transforming Politics in Kenya Nanjala Nyabola 273pp Zed Books (London).

90.

Eastern African Literatures: Towards an Aesthetics of Proximity Russell West-Pavlov 219pp Oxford Univ Press (Oxford).

91.

“English is an African language — Ka Dupe! [for and against Ngũgĩ]” Biodun Jeyifo Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(2) pp133–147.

92.

“Exchanges in Nairobi and Lagos: Mapping Literary Networks and World Literary Space” Kate Wallis Research in African Literatures 49(1) pp163–186.

93.

“The Great English Heist in African Studies” John Mugane Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(2) pp148–162.

94.

“Introduction: Indian Ocean Trajectories” Evan Mwangi and Tina Steiner Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies pp161–163 [see Journals: Special Issues].

95.

Joke Performance in Africa: Mode, Media and Meaning ed Ignatius Chukwumah 306pp Routledge (London) [2017].

96.

“Margins and their Im/Possibilities in Eastern African Imaginaries” Grace A Musila Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) pp1–5 [see Journals: Special Issues].

97.

Miscegenation, Identity and Status in Colonial Africa: Intimate Colonial Encounters Lawrence Mbogoni 237pp Routledge (New York).

98.

“Mythical Hero or Tragic Failure? An Interrogation of the Jomo Kenyatta ‘Black People’s Moses’ Mystique in Two Kenyan Patriographies” Gĩchingiri Ndĩgĩrĩgĩ Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(2) pp192–207.

99.

“The Politics of Translation: Notes towards an African Language Policy” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Journal of African Cultural Studies 30 (2) pp124–132.

100.

“Postrealist, Postmodernist, Postnation? The Swahili Novel 1987–2010” Lutz Diegner Research in African Literatures 49 (1) pp117–44.

101.

“Self-mythologization in East African Political Writings: Kenyatta, Nyerere and Museveni” Stephen Muthoka Mutie Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(1) pp1–34.

102.

Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience Kai Kresse 237pp Indiana Univ Press (Bloomington).

103.

Translocal Connections across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move ed Francesca Declich n. pag. Koninklijke Brill (Leiden).

104.

Taking African Cartoons Seriously: Politics, Satire, and Culture eds Peter Limb and Tejumola Olaniyan 308pp Michigan Univ Press (East Lansing).

105.

“The Aesthetics of the Ugly — Perspectives on Degrading Online Sex Jokes in Kenya” Felix A. Orina and Fred W. Simiyu in Joke Performance in Africa: Mode, Media and Meaning ed Ignatius Chukwumah [see Criticism: Regional].

106.

“(Con)text and Performance of Mchongoano — An Urban Youth Joke Genre in Kenya” Wangari Mwai, Charles Kebaya and David Kimongo in Joke Performance in Africa: Mode, Media and Meaning ed Ignatius Chukwumah [see Criticism: Regional].

107.

The Funeral Performances among the Bukusu of Kenya: A Contribution to Communicative Genre Analysis Simon Nganga 313pp Lit (Berlin).

108.

“Homing with My Mother/ How Women in My Family Married Women” Neo Sinoxolo Musangi Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 17(2) pp401–414.

109.

“Ideological Undertones in Mediatized Comedy in the Churchill Show of Kenya” Khaemba Josephine Mulindi and Michael N. Ndonye in Joke Performance in Africa: Mode, Media and Meaning ed Ignatius Chukwumah [see Criticism: Regional].

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“Kenya Noir: Crime Fiction’s Critique” Julia Augart Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) pp81–92.

111.

Kenya’s War of Independence: Mau Mau and Its Legacy of Resistance to Colonialism and Imperialism, 1948–1990 Shiraz Durrani 448pp Vita Books (Nairobi).

112.

Kenyatta and Britain: An Account of Political Transformation, 1929–1963 W. O. Maloba 295pp Palgrave Macmillan (Cham, Switzerland).

113.

“Popular Art and the Reconfiguration of Police Atrocities in Kenya” Charles Kebaya Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(2) pp105–123.

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“Rapping with a Forked Tongue, Code-switching and the Tribalized Kenya of the End of the Twentieth Century in ‘Otongolo Tyme’ by Poxi Presha” Tom Michael Mboya Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(2) pp85–104.

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“(Re)imagining the Postcolony in Kenya’s The XYZ Show Joke-Cartoons” pp70–91 Remy Shiundu Barasa in Joke Performance in Africa: Mode, Media and Meaning ed Ignatius Chukwumah [see Criticism: Regional].

116.

The Rhetorical Legacy of Wangari Maathai: Planting the Future eds Eddah M. Mutua, Alberto González, and Anke Wolbert 244pp Lexington Books (Lanham, MD).

117.

Sheng: Rise of a Kenyan Swahili Vernacular Chege Githiora 216pp James Currey (Woodbridge, Suffolk).

118.

“Sheng: The Expanding Domains of an Urban Youth Vernacular” Chege Githiora Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(2) pp105–120.

119.

Imagining Africa: Whiteness and the Western Gaze Clive Gabay 278pp Cambridge Univ Press (New York).

120.

Buried in the Heart: Women, Complex Victimhood and the War in Northern Uganda Erin Baines 152pp Cambridge Univ Press (New York).

121.

The Creative Wealth of Nations: Can the Arts Advance Development Patrick Kabanda 331pp Cambridge Univ Press (Cambridge).

122.

How to Intellectualise our Cultures: Uganda’s First Cultural Revolution Charles Muwanga 193pp Charles Muwanga (Kampala).

123.

Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire Laura Edmondson 348pp Indiana Univ Press (Bloomington).

124.

Tuning the Kingdom: Kawuugulu Musical Performance, Politics, and Storytelling in Buganda Damascus Kafumbe 151pp Univ of Rochester Press (Rochester).

125.

“The Antinomies of Transgressive Gender Acts in Professor Jay’s Rap Music Video ‘Zali la Mentali’ in Tanzania” Imani Sanga Journal of Literary Studies 34(1) pp104–117.

126.

“Beliefs and the Spiritual World: Socio-cultural and Material Conditions of Tanzania’s Occult Fiction” Eliah S. Mwaifuge Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(2) pp124–141.

127.

“From the Margins to the Mainstream: Making and Remaking an Alternative Music Economy in Dar es Salaam” David Kerr Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) pp65–80.

128.

The Legacy of Tanzanian Musicians Muhidin Gurumo and Hassan Bitchuka: Rhumba Kiserebuka! Frank Gunderson 301pp Lexington Books (Lanham, MD).

129.

Reel Pleasures: Cinema Audiences and Entrepreneurs in Twentieth-century Urban Tanzania Laura Fair 452pp Ohio Univ Press (Athens, OH).

130.

Social Memory, Silenced Voices, and Political Struggle: Remembering the Revolution in Zanzibar Bissell Cunningham 406pp Mkuki na Nyota Publishers (Oxford).

131.

The Swahili World eds Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Adria LaViolette 671pp Routledge (New York).

132.

“Ujamaa’s Villagization and Gender Dynamics in Selected Tanzanian Fiction” John Wakota Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) pp49–64 [see Journals: Special Issues].

133.

“Aesthetics of Anganga Afiki’s Video Joke Performance in Malawi” Smith Likongwe in Joke Performance in Africa: Mode, Media and Meaning ed Ignatius Chukwumah [see Criticism: Regional].

134.

Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin ‘“Picking up the crumbs of England’: East African Asians in Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s Autobiographies” Felicity Hand Journal of Commonwealth Literature 53(1) pp61–77.

135.

Haji, Haji Gora “In Search of Poem-Maps of the Swahili Seas: Three Sea Poems by Haji Gora Haji” Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(3/4) pp164–178 [see Journals: Special Issues].

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Makumbi, Jennifer Nansumbuga “Beyond the Afropolitan Postnation: The Contemporaneity of Jennifer Makumbi’s Kintu” Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire Research in African Literatures 49(1) pp103–16.

137.

Mukasa, Ham and Apollo Kagwa “Shifting Marginalities in Ham Mukasa and Sir Apolo Kagwa’s Uganda’s Katikiro in England” Danson Sylvester Kahyana Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) pp36–48 [see Journals: Special Issues].

138.

Patel, Shailja “Migritude’s Decolonial Lessons” Neelofer Qadir Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(3/4) pp221–243 [see Special Issues].

139.

Somjee, Sultan “Imaginings of Khoja, Maasai and Swahili Aesthetics in Artist Ethnographer Sultan Somjee’s Narratives” Mala Pandurang Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(3/4) pp204–220 [see Special Issues].

140.

Tejani, Bahadur “Utopian Envisioning: Politics of Belonging and the Emergence of the First Indian South African and East African Novels” James Ocita Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) pp20–35 [see Special Issues].

141.

Vassanji, MG “Vassanji’s Disquiet with History in A Place Within” Godwin Siundu Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) pp6–19 [see Special Issues].

142.

Wa Ngugi, Mukoma “Reframing the Nation-State: The Transgression and Redrawing of Borders in African Crime Fiction” Miriam Pahl Research in African Literatures 49(1) pp84–102.

143.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi Ngũgĩ: Reflections on his Life of Writing eds Simon Gikandi and Ndirangu Wachanga 242pp James Currey (Woodbridge, Suffolk).

144.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi “Describing the Politics of Sovereignty in Postcolonial Africa: Rereading Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o’s Matigari and Alobwed’Epie’s The Death Certificate” Eric Nsuh Zuhmboshi Research in African Literatures 49(3) pp18–34.

145.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi “Tales from the Corpolony: Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow and the Dictator-Novel in the Time of Transition” Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra Research in African Literatures 49(3) pp223–40.

146.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi “Environmental Dispossession and Dislocated Fatherhood in Ngũgĩ’s Childhood Memoirs” Senayon Olaoluwa Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(1) pp35–54.

147.

Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 4(3/4) special issue Indian Ocean Trajectories eds Evan Mwangi and Tina Steiner 98pp.

148.

Journal of African Cultural Studies 30(1) special issue Margins and Their Im/possibilities ed Grace A. Musila.