by Roger Kutz
Meja Mwangi belongs to a second generation of Kenyan
creative writers in English. Mwangi began his prolific writing
career in the 1970s, a decade after his more well-known
compatriots such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Grace Ogot had
been publishing their works. When he burst onto the scene
with the award-winning Kill Me Quick in 1973, Mwangi was
hailed in various quarters as a rising star in the East African
literary constellation who was helping to disprove Taban lo
Liyong's oft-cited claim that East Africa was a literary desert
(Taban 1965, Nazareth 1976). Since then, Meja Mwangi has
gone on to establish himself as one of the most prolific of
Kenyan writers, publishing eleven novels in seventeen years in
addition to short stories, children's books and working with a
variety of projects in film. Mwangi's works have received
awards in Kenya and abroad, they have been translated into
six languages, and there are film versions of two of his novels.
If there is a single writer whose work is representative of the
entire range of Kenyan narrative fiction today, it is Meja
Mwangi. What is common to practically all of Kenyan--indeed,
we might even say African—writing is its major thematic
preoccupation with the dynamics of how tradition and
modernity interact in African society. This thematic
preoccupation has led in a number of directions, of course, with
major concerns being the disintegration of village life following
the arrival of the Europeans in the colonial era, the
disequilibrium caused by European formal education, the
torment of the "been-to", the influence of the missionaries, and
in the post-colonial setting the development of a new African
political and economic elite and the dilemmas of life in the
modern African city.
While Mwangi has touched on all of these concerns, we might
divide his work into three major categories. The first comprises
his Mau Mau novels. For many Kenyan writers, the armed
resistance to British colonialism in Kenya, which came to be
known as the Mau Mau revolt and reached its height in the
1950s, was a far-reaching experience. Mwangi has "exhumed
his Mau Mau ghost" in his two novels Carcase for Hounds and
Taste of Death (note). The'thrillers that Mwangi began to write
during the late 1970s and 1980s form a second category of
texts, and have put him at the heart of a raging critical debate
in the Kenyan literary establishment over the merits of serious
versus popular literature. The third category of Mwangian
writing, in fact written before Mwangi began his popular
writings, is that of the urban novel. Mwangi's urban trilogv--Kill
Me Quick. Going Down River Road, and The Cockroach Dance—
is a compelling and innovative set of texts dealing with what is
arguably the most pressing contemporary social problem in
Kenya: the rapid urbanization the country has experienced
since independence in 1963 and its accompanying social
problems. It is fair to say that critical acclaim for Mwangi as a
writer has come predominantly from these tales of city life.
Meja Mwangi was born in Nanyuki, in Kenya's Central Province,
on December 27, 1948. While by no means a major city,
Nanyuki is an important center in a region which, during the
pre-colonial era when Mwangi was born, was part of the so-
called "white highlands," an area that had been set aside by
the colonial administration exclusively for settlement by
European farmers. The region features fertile farmland and an
excellent climate. Following the colonization of Kenya, the
resident Kikuyu and Maasai populations were either forced off
this land onto "native reserves" or permitted to remain as
squatters and laborers on the new white-owned ranches. The
fact that land alienation was most blatant in this part of the
colony, coupled with the importance of land in the Kikuyu
tradition, made Central Province the center of armed resistance
to the colonial authorities. The Land and Freedom army, also
known by the enigmatic name of Mau Mau, effectively used its
base in the forests if Central Province to become an important
force in the lead-up to independence in 1963.
In some of same ways that the Vietnam War was a watershed
in the North American consciousness, the Mau Mau struggle
was a defining and divisive experience for the colony and later
the nation of Kenya. In the 1950s, as resistance fighters in
increasing numbers took to the forests of Mount Kenya or the
Aberdare mountain range—both areas near Mwangi's home in
Nanyuki—the colonial administration declared a state of
emergency, restricting movement in the area, resettling people
into more easily controlled "villages," and using Kenyan
homeguards to combat what they termed a terrorist
movement. While there is no doubt that the Mau Mau fighters
were instrumental in convincing the British government to
grant political independence in Kenya, when the colonial
administration negotiated the terms of independence it was
with leaders who had not been personally involved in the
armed struggle. The result has been an uneasy official position
toward the Mau Mau participants during the entire postcolonial
era"that has followed. While giving lip service to the patriotism
of the freedom fighters, many politicians who themselves took
less confrontional and more collaborative stances during that
era are happy to forget it (note: about Waruhiu Itote; Ngugi's
position; more Mau Mau background). Given its historical and
social significance, writers—and particularly Kikuyu writers—
have felt compelled to deal with the Mau Mau experience in
one way or another, and Meja Mwangi is no exception. He
experienced the emergency as a child, living in the area of the
main conflict, and turned fifteen two weeks after Kenya
achieved political independence. Both the promises of political
independence and the troubled time leading up to that point
were central to his consciousness.
The 1970s, when Mwangi was entering his 20s and beginning
to publish his writings, was a time of disillusionment with the
unfulfilled hopes of independence in East Africa in general, and
a time of crisis for the city of Nairobi in particular. There
resulted what might be termed an entire genre of
"disillusionment literature," which vigorously criticized the new
African political and economic elite that appeared to have
betrayed the nation by using education and positions of
privilege for personal rather than collective gain. The term
neocolonialism was coined to describe a situation where a few
of the faces in the power structure changed but where unjust
colonial structures remained firmly in place. The disillusioned
intellectual, once so optimistic about national development and
the intelectual's role in nation-building, surfaced as an
important character in Kenyan writing (note: Ngugi; Kibera).
It was at this time—around 1970—that Mwangi moved to
Nairobi to continue his education. In addition to the climate of
political disillusionment, the city's population was for a variety
of reasons quickly outgrowing the capacity of its infrastructure.
Although Nairobi has been characterized by rapid growth
throughout its history, in the decade following independence
and with the dropping of restrictions on African immigration to
the city, the growth reached unprecedented heights. By the
early 1970s, housing, employment and transportation facilities
were being strained more than ever. Slums, always a feature
of Nairobi's geography, were growing at alarming rates. The
government responded with a number of autocratic measures
reminiscent of colonial era tactics, lending credence to charges
that Kenya's was a ne-ocolonial social system. Historically,
Nairobi had been designed as a white man's city, and during
the colonial era the South African model of racial segregation in
housing and business was adopted almost wholesale. Pass
laws were issued to restrict immigration, and vagrancy acts
allowed unwanted immigrants to be returned to the
countryside. In the late 1960s, when the post-independence
relaxation of immigration restrictions allowed a huge growth in
the city, the government reinstated some of the colonial-era
vagrancy laws, and President Kenyatta urged Nairobi residents
who had no jobs to "go back to the land." These measures
had relatively limited impact, and Nairobi has continued its
rapid growth since. Not surprisingly, this rapid urbanization,
perhaps the most significant social phenomenon of post-
colonial Kenya, was soon being treated by Kenyan writers,
with Leonard Kibera's Voices in the Dark the first example of
this trend.
Meja Mwangi is somewhat unusual among Kenyan writers in
that he was not part of the university community, which has
been the traditional fount of creative writers and artists in the
post-colonial East African setting. After completing his "0" level
exams at Nanyuki secondary school and his "A" level training at
Kenyatta College near Nairobi, he applied for but failed to gain
admission to the journalism and television broadcasting
programs at the University of Nairobi. He instead embarked on
a career of practical experience with the film industry. Mwangi
worked as a soundman with a French television company ORTF,
traveling throughout East Africa, and later joined the staff at
the British Council in Nairobi as a film librarian. It was while at
the British Council that he wrote his first novel (although the
second to be published), Carcase for Hounds.
The importance of film to Mwangi's creative expression cannot
be overemphasized. As a child in Nanyuki, he would regularly
attend the open-air film offerings of the mobile movie theaters
that came through town showing mostly Hollywood
productions, and when Mwangi moved to Nairobi during the
1970s, he came to a town where recently released American
and British films were regularly shown. Later, his connections
with French television and with the British Council led to jobs
on a number of major films that were shot in Kenya. Mwangi
was location manager for Shadow on the Sun, casting director
for Kitchen Toto, and assistant director for the Hollywood hits
Gorillas in the Mist. White Mischief and Out of Africa. The
result has been a decidedly cinematic vision in his writing and a
narrative style reminiscent of fast-moving popular film.
Mwangi's characters, like many Kenyans of Mwangi's
generation and younger, are conversant in tough-guy American
slang; they reflect the alienation and individualism most
obvious in urban postcolonial Kenya. Not surprisingly, two of
Mwangi's novels have been associated with films: Carcase for
Hounds was made into Cry Freedom (note) and The
Bushtrackers was a screenplay collaboration with the North
American journalist Gary Strieker.
Meja Mwangi belongs to a second generation of Kenyan
creative writers in English. Mwangi began his prolific writing
career in the 1970s, a decade after his more well-known
compatriots such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Grace Ogot had
been publishing their works. When he burst onto the scene
with the award-winning Kill Me Quick in 1973, Mwangi was
hailed in various quarters as a rising star in the East African
literary constellation who was helping to disprove Taban lo
Liyong's oft-cited claim that East Africa was a literary desert
(Taban 1965, Nazareth 1976). Since then, Meja Mwangi has
gone on to establish himself as one of the most prolific of
Kenyan writers, publishing eleven novels in seventeen years in
addition to short stories, children's books and working with a
variety of projects in film. Mwangi's works have received
awards in Kenya and abroad, they have been translated into
six languages, and there are film versions of two of his novels.
If there is a single writer whose work is representative of the
entire range of Kenyan narrative fiction today, it is Meja
Mwangi. What is common to practically all of Kenyan--indeed,
we might even say African—writing is its major thematic
preoccupation with the dynamics of how tradition and
modernity interact in African society. This thematic
preoccupation has led in a number of directions, of course, with
major concerns being the disintegration of village life following
the arrival of the Europeans in the colonial era, the
disequilibrium caused by European formal education, the
torment of the "been-to", the influence of the missionaries, and
in the post-colonial setting the development of a new African
political and economic elite and the dilemmas of life in the
modern African city.
While Mwangi has touched on all of these concerns, we might
divide his work into three major categories. The first comprises
his Mau Mau novels. For many Kenyan writers, the armed
resistance to British colonialism in Kenya, which came to be
known as the Mau Mau revolt and reached its height in the
1950s, was a far-reaching experience. Mwangi has "exhumed
his Mau Mau ghost" in his two novels Carcase for Hounds and
Taste of Death (note). The'thrillers that Mwangi began to write
during the late 1970s and 1980s form a second category of
texts, and have put him at the heart of a raging critical debate
in the Kenyan literary establishment over the merits of serious
versus popular literature. The third category of Mwangian
writing, in fact written before Mwangi began his popular
writings, is that of the urban novel. Mwangi's urban trilogv--Kill
Me Quick. Going Down River Road, and The Cockroach Dance—
is a compelling and innovative set of texts dealing with what is
arguably the most pressing contemporary social problem in
Kenya: the rapid urbanization the country has experienced
since independence in 1963 and its accompanying social
problems. It is fair to say that critical acclaim for Mwangi as a
writer has come predominantly from these tales of city life.
Meja Mwangi was born in Nanyuki, in Kenya's Central Province,
on December 27, 1948. While by no means a major city,
Nanyuki is an important center in a region which, during the
pre-colonial era when Mwangi was born, was part of the so-
called "white highlands," an area that had been set aside by
the colonial administration exclusively for settlement by
European farmers. The region features fertile farmland and an
excellent climate. Following the colonization of Kenya, the
resident Kikuyu and Maasai populations were either forced off
this land onto "native reserves" or permitted to remain as
squatters and laborers on the new white-owned ranches. The
fact that land alienation was most blatant in this part of the
colony, coupled with the importance of land in the Kikuyu
tradition, made Central Province the center of armed resistance
to the colonial authorities. The Land and Freedom army, also
known by the enigmatic name of Mau Mau, effectively used its
base in the forests if Central Province to become an important
force in the lead-up to independence in 1963.
In some of same ways that the Vietnam War was a watershed
in the North American consciousness, the Mau Mau struggle
was a defining and divisive experience for the colony and later
the nation of Kenya. In the 1950s, as resistance fighters in
increasing numbers took to the forests of Mount Kenya or the
Aberdare mountain range—both areas near Mwangi's home in
Nanyuki—the colonial administration declared a state of
emergency, restricting movement in the area, resettling people
into more easily controlled "villages," and using Kenyan
homeguards to combat what they termed a terrorist
movement. While there is no doubt that the Mau Mau fighters
were instrumental in convincing the British government to
grant political independence in Kenya, when the colonial
administration negotiated the terms of independence it was
with leaders who had not been personally involved in the
armed struggle. The result has been an uneasy official position
toward the Mau Mau participants during the entire postcolonial
era"that has followed. While giving lip service to the patriotism
of the freedom fighters, many politicians who themselves took
less confrontional and more collaborative stances during that
era are happy to forget it (note: about Waruhiu Itote; Ngugi's
position; more Mau Mau background). Given its historical and
social significance, writers—and particularly Kikuyu writers—
have felt compelled to deal with the Mau Mau experience in
one way or another, and Meja Mwangi is no exception. He
experienced the emergency as a child, living in the area of the
main conflict, and turned fifteen two weeks after Kenya
achieved political independence. Both the promises of political
independence and the troubled time leading up to that point
were central to his consciousness.
The 1970s, when Mwangi was entering his 20s and beginning
to publish his writings, was a time of disillusionment with the
unfulfilled hopes of independence in East Africa in general, and
a time of crisis for the city of Nairobi in particular. There
resulted what might be termed an entire genre of
"disillusionment literature," which vigorously criticized the new
African political and economic elite that appeared to have
betrayed the nation by using education and positions of
privilege for personal rather than collective gain. The term
neocolonialism was coined to describe a situation where a few
of the faces in the power structure changed but where unjust
colonial structures remained firmly in place. The disillusioned
intellectual, once so optimistic about national development and
the intelectual's role in nation-building, surfaced as an
important character in Kenyan writing (note: Ngugi; Kibera).
It was at this time—around 1970—that Mwangi moved to
Nairobi to continue his education. In addition to the climate of
political disillusionment, the city's population was for a variety
of reasons quickly outgrowing the capacity of its infrastructure.
Although Nairobi has been characterized by rapid growth
throughout its history, in the decade following independence
and with the dropping of restrictions on African immigration to
the city, the growth reached unprecedented heights. By the
early 1970s, housing, employment and transportation facilities
were being strained more than ever. Slums, always a feature
of Nairobi's geography, were growing at alarming rates. The
government responded with a number of autocratic measures
reminiscent of colonial era tactics, lending credence to charges
that Kenya's was a ne-ocolonial social system. Historically,
Nairobi had been designed as a white man's city, and during
the colonial era the South African model of racial segregation in
housing and business was adopted almost wholesale. Pass
laws were issued to restrict immigration, and vagrancy acts
allowed unwanted immigrants to be returned to the
countryside. In the late 1960s, when the post-independence
relaxation of immigration restrictions allowed a huge growth in
the city, the government reinstated some of the colonial-era
vagrancy laws, and President Kenyatta urged Nairobi residents
who had no jobs to "go back to the land." These measures
had relatively limited impact, and Nairobi has continued its
rapid growth since. Not surprisingly, this rapid urbanization,
perhaps the most significant social phenomenon of post-
colonial Kenya, was soon being treated by Kenyan writers,
with Leonard Kibera's Voices in the Dark the first example of
this trend.
Meja Mwangi is somewhat unusual among Kenyan writers in
that he was not part of the university community, which has
been the traditional fount of creative writers and artists in the
post-colonial East African setting. After completing his "0" level
exams at Nanyuki secondary school and his "A" level training at
Kenyatta College near Nairobi, he applied for but failed to gain
admission to the journalism and television broadcasting
programs at the University of Nairobi. He instead embarked on
a career of practical experience with the film industry. Mwangi
worked as a soundman with a French television company ORTF,
traveling throughout East Africa, and later joined the staff at
the British Council in Nairobi as a film librarian. It was while at
the British Council that he wrote his first novel (although the
second to be published), Carcase for Hounds.
The importance of film to Mwangi's creative expression cannot
be overemphasized. As a child in Nanyuki, he would regularly
attend the open-air film offerings of the mobile movie theaters
that came through town showing mostly Hollywood
productions, and when Mwangi moved to Nairobi during the
1970s, he came to a town where recently released American
and British films were regularly shown. Later, his connections
with French television and with the British Council led to jobs
on a number of major films that were shot in Kenya. Mwangi
was location manager for Shadow on the Sun, casting director
for Kitchen Toto, and assistant director for the Hollywood hits
Gorillas in the Mist. White Mischief and Out of Africa. The
result has been a decidedly cinematic vision in his writing and a
narrative style reminiscent of fast-moving popular film.
Mwangi's characters, like many Kenyans of Mwangi's
generation and younger, are conversant in tough-guy American
slang; they reflect the alienation and individualism most
obvious in urban postcolonial Kenya. Not surprisingly, two of
Mwangi's novels have been associated with films: Carcase for
Hounds was made into Cry Freedom (note) and The
Bushtrackers was a screenplay collaboration with the North
American journalist Gary Strieker.
| Meja Mwangi by Roger Kurtz |
 | |  | |  | |  |
| (c) Copyright 2007 by HM Inc. + Meja Mwangi |
| MEJA MWANGI |
| Read more on ... |
| ... MWANGI THE MAU MAU HISTORIAN by J. Roger Kurtz |
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