Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Essays at the Crossroads of Culture and Faith
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-1-84701-536-5
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 48, 272 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Eastern Africa Series

Essays offering a unique intellectual perspective on East Africa's early nationalist period, particularly the end of colonialism and the first decades of independence, which open a window into the cultural debates of the day.

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye (1928-2015) has been hailed as the "grand matriarch" of Kenyan writing and a "national treasure." Though she is best known for her poems and novels, particularly Coming to Birth, Macgoye also wrote substantial nonfiction pieces on a wide range of social and cultural topics in the decades leading up to and immediately following the end of colonial rule in East Africa.

This book offers a carefully curated collection of previously unpublished or hard-to-find essays written by this pioneering writer over a 50-year period. The first and most significant is autobiographical: "A Half-Witted Life" recounts Macgoye's early years, her decision to go to Kenya as a missionary during the height of the Mau Mau rebellion, her marriage to a junior civil servant at a time when interracial marriages were extremely rare, her work in the book industry, her own growth as a writer, and her observations about Kenyan society, literature, and culture. The remaining essays address a range of social, cultural, and historical topics including race relations, mixed marriages, gender roles, the impact of missionaries, and cultural change. The collection will appeal to anyone interested in East African literature and history, particularly in relation to the nationalist period leading up to and following independence.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kurtz, J Roger

Wasamba, Peter A O

Weitere Mitwirkende

Oludhe Macgoye, Francis

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Foreword by Francis Oludhe Macgoye
Preface
Chronology
Introduction
Part I: Autobiography
1. A Half-Witted Life
Part II: The Personal Is Political
2. Socialism in the Kitchen
3. On a Mixed Marriage
4. Reply to Iconoclastes
Part III: Reframing History: Mission, Race, and Empire
5. Racial Attitudes in British Life and Literature
6. The Missionary Myth: Some Facts
7. Liberating the Future from the Past? Liberating the Past from the Future?
Part IV: The Writer's Vocation
8. Reflections on Literary Criticism
9. The Evaluation of Contemporary Literature
10. On Literary Prizes in Kenya
Part V: Testimony
11. Witness
12. Credo
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Wasamba, Peter A O
PETER A. O. WASAMBA is Professor of Literature and Law Scholar at the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

Kurtz, J Roger
J. ROGER KURTZ is Professor and Head of the Department of English and Philosophy at Drexel University, USA.