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Kenyan Poetry
Kenyan literature describes literature which comes from Kenya. Kenya has a long oral and written literary tradition, primarily in English and Swahili, the two official languages of the country. __NOTOC__ History Kenya has a strong tradition of oral literature, which continues today in several languages. As a result of Kenya's history, including a period where it was a former British colony, Kenyan literature concurrently belongs to several bodies of writing, including that of the Commonwealth of Nations and of Africa as a whole. Most written literature is in English; some scholars consider Swahili to be marginalized in Kenyan literature. Notable writers Important Kenyan writers include Grace Ogot, Meja Mwangi, Paul Kipchumba, Kinyanjui Kombani, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, and Binyavanga Wainaina. Notable works One of the best known pieces of Kenyan literature is ''Utendi wa Tambuka'', which translates to ''The Story of Tambuka''. Written by a man named Mwengo at the court of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o (signing Autographs In London)
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. He has been described as having been "considered East Africa’s leading novelist". His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His short story ''The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright'', is translated into 100 languages from around the world. In 1977, Ngũgĩ embarked upon a novel form of theatre in his native Kenya that sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the general bourgeois education system", by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances.Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, ''Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature'', 1994, pp. 57–59. His project sought to "demystify" the theatrical p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islamic Calendar
The Hijri calendar ( ar, ٱلتَّقْوِيم ٱلْهِجْرِيّ, translit=al-taqwīm al-hijrī), also known in English as the Muslim calendar and Islamic calendar, is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to determine the proper days of Islamic holidays and rituals, such as the Ramadan, annual fasting and the annual season for the Hajj, great pilgrimage. In almost all countries where the predominant religion is Islam, the civil calendar is the Gregorian calendar, with Assyrian calendar, Syriac month-names used in the Arabic names of calendar months#Levant and Mesopotamia, Levant and Mesopotamia (Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and State of Palestine, Palestine) but the religious calendar is the Hijri one. This calendar enumerates the Hijri era, whose Epoch (reference date), epoch was established as the Islamic New Year in 622 Common Era, CE. During that year, Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina and es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swahili Literature
Swahili literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the Swahili language, particularly by Swahili people of the East African coast and the neighboring islands. It may also refer to literature written by people who write in the Swahili language. It is an offshoot of the Bantu culture. The first literary works date back to the beginning of the 18th century, when all Swahili literature was written in the Arabic script. Jan Knappert considered the translation of the Arabic poem Hamziya from the year 1652 to be the earliest Swahili written text. Starting in the 19th century, missionaries and orientalists introduced the Latin script for writing the Swahili language. Characteristics Swahili literature has been an object of research by many western scholars since the 19th century. There is a debate regarding objectivity as a few scholars tried to establish a canon of Swahili writing. One of the main characteristics of Swahili literature is the relative heterogeneity of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West With The Night
''West with the Night'' is a 1942 memoir by Beryl Markham, chronicling her experiences growing up in Kenya (then British East Africa) in the early 1900s, leading to celebrated careers as a racehorse trainer and bush pilot there. It is considered a classic of outdoor literature and was included in the United States' Armed Services Editions shortly after its publication. In 2004, ''National Geographic Adventure'' ranked it number 8 in its list of the 100 best adventure books. Ernest Hemingway was deeply impressed with Markham's writing, saying Markham was the first person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west in a non-stop solo flight (a westbound flight requires more endurance, fuel, and time than the eastward journey, because the craft must travel against the prevailing Atlantic winds). When Markham decided to take on the Atlantic crossing, no pilot had yet flown non-stop from Europe to New York, and no woman had completed the westward flight solo, though several ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beryl Markham
Beryl Markham (née Clutterbuck; 26 October 1902 – 3 August 1986) was a Kenyan aviator born in England (one of the first bush flying, bush pilots), adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic from Britain to North America. She wrote about her adventures in her memoir, ''West with the Night''. Early years Markham was born in the village of Ashwell, Rutland, Ashwell, in the county of Rutland, England, the daughter of Charles Baldwin Clutterbuck, a horse trainer, and Clara Agnes (''née'' Alexander) (1878–1952). She had an older brother, Richard Alexander "Dickie" Clutterbuck (1900–1927). When she was four years old, she moved with her father to Kenya, which was then colonial British East Africa. He built a horse racing farm in Njoro, near the Kenyan Rift Valley, Great Rift Valley between the Mau Escarpment and the Rongai Valley. Markham spent an adventurous childhood learning, playing, and hunting with the loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
Marjorie Phyllis Oludhe Macgoye (21 October 1928 – 1 December 2015), was born in Southampton, England, but immigrated to Kenya soon after Kenya became independent. She was a poet, novelist, and a missionary bookseller. She studied at the University of London for both her bachelor and master’s degree. She moved to Kenya in 1954 to sell books and became a citizen in 1964. After immigrating to Kenya, she began pursuing a career of being an author. At first, she published stories in magazines. As her success grew, she started writing works of longer length. In early 1970, her novels and poetry were being published. She has won awards for many of her works such as ''Growing Up at Lina School, Murder in Majengo'', but her most notable novel is ''Coming to Birth.'' Her award-winning novels portrays the life of a Kenyan woman during the time period 1956–1978. While in Kenya, Marjorie met Macgoye, her husband, who is a medical doctor. The two were married in 1960. Early life Marj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Flame Trees Of Thika
''The Flame Trees of Thika'' is a British television serial of seven 50-minute episodes made by Euston Films for Thames Television in 1981. It was adapted by John Hawkesworth from the 1959 book of the same title by Elspeth Huxley, and is set in and around the town of Thika in Kenya's Central Province. The story deals with the lives of British settlers in this part of East Africa in 1913, when the country was a British colony, up to the start of World War One. The series stars Hayley Mills (in her first starring role after a six-year performing hiatus), Holly Aird, David Robb and Ben Cross. Plot Robin Grant (David Robb), his wife Tilly ( Hayley Mills) and daughter Elspeth (Holly Aird) move to British East Africa (now called Kenya) to set up a coffee plantation. They meet Piet Roos ( Morgan Sheppard), a Boer big game hunter, and Njombo, a native who goes to work for them. The Grants face many travails in getting established, but these improve after they hire another native, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elspeth Huxley
Elspeth Joscelin Huxley CBE (née Grant; 23 July 1907 – 10 January 1997) was an English writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government adviser. She wrote over 40 books, including her best-known lyrical books, ''The Flame Trees of Thika'' and ''The Mottled Lizard'', based on her youth in a coffee farm in British Kenya. Her husband, Gervas Huxley, was a grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley and a cousin of Aldous Huxley. Early life and education Nellie and Major Josceline Grant, Elspeth's parents, arrived in Thika in what was then British East Africa in 1912, to start a life as coffee farmers in colonial Kenya. Elspeth, aged six, arrived in December 1913, complete with governess and maid. Her upbringing was unconventional; she was "almost treated as a parcel, being passed from hand to hand". Huxley's 1959 book ''The Flame Trees of Thika'' explores how unprepared for rustic life the early British settlers really were. It was adapted into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Out Of Africa
''Out of Africa'' is a memoir by the Danish people, Danish author Karen Blixen. The book, first published in 1937, recounts events of the seventeen years when Blixen made her home in Kenya, then called East Africa Protectorate, British East Africa. The book is a lyrical meditation on Blixen's life on her coffee plantation, as well as a tribute to some of the people who touched her life there. It provides a vivid snapshot of African colonial life in the last decades of the British Empire. Blixen wrote the book in English language, English and then rewrote it in Danish language, Danish. The book has sometimes been published under the author's pen name, Isak Dinesen. Background Karen Blixen moved to East Africa Protectorate, British East Africa in late 1913, at the age of 28, to marry her second cousin, the Swedish people, Swedish Swedish nobility, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, and make a life in the British colony known today as Kenya. The young Baron and Baroness bought farmlan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karen Blixen
Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (born Dinesen; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962) was a Danish author who wrote works in Danish and English. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countries, Tania Blixen, used in German-speaking countries, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen is best known for ''Out of Africa'', an account of her life while living in East Africa Protectorate, Kenya, and for one of her stories, ''Babette's Feast (short story), Babette's Feast'', both of which have been adapted into Academy Awards, Academy Award–winning motion pictures. She is also noted, particularly in Denmark, for her ''Seven Gothic Tales''. Among her later stories are ''Winter’s Tales'' (1942), ''Last Tales'' (1957), ''Anecdotes of Destiny'' (1958) and ''Ehrengard'' (1963). Blixen was considered several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but it wasn't awarded because judges were reportedly concerned about showing favoritism to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Grain Of Wheat
''A Grain of Wheat'' is a historical novel written by Kenyan novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, first published as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. It was written while he was studying at Leeds University and first published in 1967 by Heinemann. The title is taken from the Gospel According to St. John, 12:24. The novel weaves together several stories set during the state of emergency in Kenya's struggle for independence (1952–59), focusing on the quiet Mugo, whose life is ruled by a dark secret (he was the one who betrayed Kihika). The plot revolves around his home village's preparations for Kenya's independence day celebration, Uhuru day. On that day, former resistance fighters General R and Koinandu plan on publicly executing the traitor who betrayed Kihika (a heroic resistance fighter hailing from the village). In 2022, ''A Grain of Wheat'' was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The River Between
''The River Between'' is a 1965 novel by prolific Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o that was published as part of the influential African Writers Series. It tells the story of the separation of two neighbouring villages of Kenya caused by differences in faith set in the decades of roughly the early 20th century. The bitterness between them caused much hatred between the adults of each side. The story tells about the struggle of a young leader, Waiyaki, to unite the two villages of Kameno and Makuyu through sacrifice and pain. The novel is set during the colonial period, when white settlers arrived in Kenya's "White Highlands The White Highlands is an area in the central uplands of Kenya. It was traditionally the homeland of indigenous Central Kenyan communities up to the colonial period, when it became the centre of European settlement in Kenya, and between 1902 and 19 ...", and has a mountain setting. Plot Summary A young man called Waiyaki is a focal point in Ngugi’s story. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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