The origins
If the Great Rift Valley that crosses Kenya is considered the cradle of humanity, the region - larger than the borders drawn by man and which should be extended to Tanzania - is also the one that saw the emergence of a language, Kiswahili (the language of the coast), and a poetic form, Utendi (or Utenzi). The former was born of the encounter between the language of the indigenous Bantu peoples and the vocabulary of merchants from the Arabian Peninsula, with whom trade intensified in the tenth century, while the latter follows a metrical pattern that is still very popular today: quatrains in which the first three lines rhyme together and the fourth line is echoed throughout the poem.
It is in the archipelago of Lamu, and more precisely on the island of Plate, that the passage to writing of Kiswahili in Arabic characters (ajemi literature) is situated, because it is only with the arrival of missionaries at the end of the 19th century that it will be transposed into Latin alphabet. Thus, it was in the royal palace of Yunga that Mwengo is said to have composed for the king of the island the Utendu wa Tambuka, one of the oldest manuscripts in Swahili - called here kiamu - in which the epic of the warriors of Mohammed is told. It is from the island of Pate that a legendary hero, Fumo Liyongo, comes from, whose adventures have nourished both oral tradition and an important corpus of written texts. Finally, the archipelago saw the birth of a great poetess, Mwana Kupona, in the early 19th century. Although her life is poorly documented, the utendi that bears her name has remained famous. In it, the author gives advice to her daughter on the role of wife, and adds a mystical tone to her words. At about the same time, another work appeared, miraculously saved from oblivion by the transcription made by Mwalimu Sikujua, a scholar from Mombasa, at the request of a missionary, William Taylor. It is a collection written by Muyaka (1776-1840), a poet who is often described as a nationalist because he uses his verses to challenge the growing power of the Sultan of Oman, but who nevertheless allows himself to tackle other strong themes such as love or prosperity. Finally, we should mention the all-round poet Muhammad Kimjuwa (1855-1945) who imported from Zanzibar to his native Lamu the taarab, which became tarabu, a singing contest where improvisation was poetic and sometimes teasing.
At the very end of the 19th century, a man destined to become an author and president of the Republic was born. It was in what was then a British colony that Jomo Kenyatta was raised by his parents and then, after their death, by his uncle and grandfather. He left Gatundu in 1920, first for Nairobi, then for abroad. Freshly graduated from his studies in Anthropology in London, he publishes in 1938 his thesis, At the foot of Mount Kenya, a precious document on the way of life of the ethnic group from which he comes, the Kikuyus, but also a diatribe against the Europeans who colonized Africa. This anger will resurface when, back in his country, he will invest in the independence movement, which will lead him to be imprisoned when the state of emergency will be established in retaliation to the Mau Mau revolt in 1952. The colonial government eventually released him almost ten years later, believing him to be capable of managing the independence that had become inevitable. Jomo Kenyatta proclaimed independence in December 1963 and was elected president the following year, a position he held until his death in 1978.The effervescence
The pre- and post-independence period will see a resurgence of publications that are interested in political events, of course, but also, and more broadly, in folklore or societal issues. One of these precursors is too often forgotten, even though his career in the world of books lasted more than 50 years and led him to be imprisoned following the publication of pamphlets against colonization that he had written in Swahili so that as many people as possible - including colonists - could read them. Yet, what makes Gakaara wa Wanjaū (1921-2001) special is that he will devote himself to promoting Kikuyu culture and that he will be one of the only ones to use this language, especially in his works intended for the new generation. He was the first to create an association of Kenyan writers in 1946, theAfrican Book Writers Ltd. and he also became a publisher of books and magazines, keeping in mind to offer his publications at low prices. But it is the Journal -
7000 pages! - which he kept during his imprisonment, won him the Noma Prize in 1984, although those who acclaimed him at the time took little interest in his other literary works, and ended up regretting that he, a fervent admirer of the moderate Jomo Kenyatta, was not more radical in his commitment.The idea of publishing these intimate documents was the result of his meeting with the man who is now considered Kenya's greatest writer, the one he influenced and who continued to write in Kikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, born in January 1938 in Kamirithu. Most of his work is political, as is his first novel, published in 1962 and published in French by Passage(s) under the title Ne pleure pas, mon enfant. The writer follows the steps of a teenager who becomes an adult at the very moment when his country is fighting for independence. Thiong'o was in Uganda at the time, studying at Makerere University, which is renowned for having trained many literary men and women. He then moved to Leeds to continue his studies, and began researching Joseph Conrad. His book A Grain of Wheat (1967) was already a success, but it was Petals of Blood (published by Présence Africaine) that finally brought him international recognition ten years later. That same year, 1977, he wrote a play performed in Kikuyu, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I'll get married when I want), which questioned post-independence Kenya and the legacy of colonialism. The government does not like it, and Thiong'o is sent to prison, along with Ngugi wa Mirii, the co-author of this work. The imprisonment made Thiong'o even more critical of the government, which did not leave him in peace: in 1982, his new play Maitu Njugira was not only banned, but the theater where it was to be performed was razed! The writer then chose to go into exile, from which he did not return until 2004, to his great misfortune, because a few days after his return, he and his wife were seriously attacked. Thiong'o has also published essays, including Pour décoloniser l'esprit (published by La Fabrique), in which he explains that he will no longer write in English but only in his own language, Kikuyu, and, more recently, Pour une Afrique libre (For a Free Africa
), published in translation by Philippe Rey in 2017. The generation to which he belongs, that of the 30s and 40s, also saw the birth of women who were destined for great literary careers. Their eldest is Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye who, although originally from England, made Kenya her heartland. A reciprocal adoption that earned her the nickname of "mother of Kenyan literature" as her investment in the local cultural life was equal to the quality of her novels. A Farm called Kishinev, published in 2005, was awarded the Jomo Kenyatta Prize. The reputation of her younger sister, Grace Ogot (1930-2015), has spread far beyond the borders of the country, although French readers cannot discover her works in their own language. She is the writer of folklore that she sometimes pushes to the sociological study as evidenced by The strange Bridge where she dissects the culture of the Luo country. Her first novel, The Promised Land, explored the 1930s and the delicate issue of marriage. Rebeka Njau is also interested in women's issues, from female circumcision in her play The Scar to the weight of patriarchy in The Sacred Seed. She has also valued the oral tradition of her country by collecting stories in The Hypocrite and other Stories published in 1977. Charity Wanjiku Waciuma and Asenath Bole Odaga are also active in the children's literature segment. Finally, it would be impossible not to mention the influential poet and playwright Micere Githae Mugo, who had to go into exile under Daniel arap Moi's rule, an end to which the novelist Philo Ikonya and the feminist activist Wanjiru Kihoro also had to bow.New life
During the rich 1970s, the talents of Charles Mangua (1939-2021), who sold several thousand copies of his irreverent Son of Woman and A Tail in the Mouth, Meja Mwangi, author of the cult novel Going down River Road, playwright Francis Davis Imbuga(Betrayal in the City), and the very popular David G. Maillu(After 4:30) still stood out. After a period of relative decline, in 2003 a magazine shook up the literary landscape, Kwani ? launched by the eponymous collective just after the elections of 2002 rhymed with the hope of change. One of the aims of this innovative publication was to shed light on a memory that had been silenced. In its first issue, it published the short story A Likely Story, in which Andia Kisia portrayed the devastating misdeeds of a historian. Kwani? has also published texts by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, born in 1968 in Nairobi, whose novel Dust was acclaimed by international critics and which Actes Sud had translated in 2017(La Maison au bout des voyages). A new generation of authors is therefore ready to take over, especially since Kenyans today claim their desire to discover African writers, among whom we could mention at least two of the winners of the prestigious Caine Prize: Okwiri Oduor in 2014 for My Father's Head, and Makena Onjerika in 2018 for Fanta Blackcurrant. Finally, Binyavanga Wainaina, who died prematurely in 2019 at the age of 49, was also certainly promised a fine career, one of his texts is found in L'Afrique qui vient published in 2020 under the leadership of Alain Mabanckou at the editions Hoëbeke, an anthology that helps to get a very accurate idea of the quality of writers that the African continent has today.
