Chinua Achebe and C.L. Innes (editors)
African Short Stories (Heinemann, UK/US). A collection which treats its material geographically, including Kenyan stories from Jomo Kenyatta, Grace Ogot, Ngugi and a spooky offering (
The Spider's Web ) from Leonard Kibera, brother of Sam Kahiga.
Thomas Akare The Slums (o/p). A bleaker read than Mwangi, but also more humane. Without quotation marks, the dialogue melds seamlessly into the narrative; no doubts about the authentic rhythms of Kenyan English here. But much is assumed to be understood and there's much that won't be, unless you're sitting under a 25-watt light bulb in a River Road B&L.
Lalage Bown (editor) Two Centuries of African English (o/p). Includes non-fiction extracts from the work of J. M. Kariuki ( Mau Mau Detainee ), Ali Mazrui on intellectuals and revolution, Githende Mockerie and R. Mugo Gatheru recounting their childhoods, and Tom Mboya on Julius Nyerere, first president of Tanzania.
Charlotte H. Bruner (editor) Unwinding Threads: Writing by Women in Africa (Heinemann, UK/US). Also geographical, with succinct introductions to each region. East Africa features Kenyan writers Charity Waciuma and the excellent Grace Ogot, whose The Rain Came is a bewitching mystery myth, combining traditional Luo tales with her own fiction in a perplexingly "Western" form. There's a new Heinemann collection edited by Bruner, entitled African Women's Writing .
Sam Kahiga Flight to Juba - Short Stories (Longman, Kenya); The Girl from Abroad (o/p). Vital, exasperating, obnoxious and plain crazy - a writer to love to hate.
John Kiriamiti My Life in Crime (Spear, Kenya) This racy autobiographical account, penned in prison by a professional robber, was so successful that the author went on to write two novels ( Son of Fate and The Sinister Trophy ) plus an account of his time as a villain told from his fiancée's point of view ( My Life with a Criminal: Millie's Story ).
J. Roger Kurtz Urban Obsessions, Urban Fears: the postcolonial Kenyan novel (James Currey, UK/Africa World Press, US). Explores the relationship between Kenyan fiction in English and the city of Nairobi. Includes a comprehensive bibliography of all the Kenyan novels in English since Ngugi's Weep Not, Child was first published in 1964.
Bramwell Lusweti The Way to the Town Hall (Macmillan, Kenya). Enjoyable satire aimed at small-town politicians and businessmen. A Swahili dictionary (to translate the characters' names) is a help.
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye Victoria and Murder in Majengo (Macmillan, UK). Two novels - available in one volume - putting a Luo woman's view on life in Kenya from one of the country's few published women writers.
Charles Mangua Son of Woman (Spear, Kenya) Less down and out, but a lot more "street" than Meja Mwangi, Mangua tells the tale of a son of a prostitute and his misadventures: hard-bitten and cynical, but engaging nonetheless. In a very different style, his second novel, A Tail in the Mouth , looks at the Mau Mau rebellion through the eyes of a young man caught up in it and swept along by events.
Ali Mazrui The Trial of Christopher Okigbo (o/p). A clever "novel of ideas" from the US-based political scientist, who always succeeds in infuriating both critics of Kenya and its supporters. His book, Cultural Forces in World Politics (James Currey, UK/Heinemann, US) is a survey of cultural and political ideas which also addresses the issues surrounding Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses .
David Mulwa Master and Servant (o/p). Growing up in colonial Kenya: a funny and affecting string of episodes.
Mude Dae Mude The Hills are Falling (Kenya Literature Bureau, Nairobi). Life from Marsabit to Nairobi.
Meja Mwangi Going Down River Road; Carcase for Hounds; Kill Me Quick (all in Heinemann's African Writers series, UK/US, the latter two titles now o/p). Mwangi is lighter and more accessible than Ngugi, his fiction infused with the absurdities of urban Nairobi slum life. Going Down River Road is the best known: convincing scenes, chaotic action and sharp dialogue (though it's never clear whether the English/American street cool is meant to be real, or an effort to render the Swahili-Kikuyu "Sheng" slang of the slums). Great in situ reading. Mwangi was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, with Striving for the Wind (1992), set in a rural rather than urban location.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Heinemann, UK/US). Ngugi has long been closely associated with attempts to move Kenyan literature and African literature in general towards expression in the readers' mother tongues.
Kenneth Watene Sunset on the Manyatta (East African Publishing House, Kenya). A Maasai man in Germany.
