Occasional Paper No.5. A brief survey of adult literacy programmes in Kenya concluding that for African countries to enable their people to control their economic, social and political environment in the 21st century, education must be delivered through the indigenous African languages. Table, 14pp, SOUTH AFRICA. CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES.

A study combining literary criticism and historiography discussing the creative political work of writers in colonial Kenya. The author explores how different kinds of texts where interpreted, used and recomposed in political discourse and looks in particular at Gikuyu responses to oral politics and the work of Ngugi Wa Thiongo. Index, bib, notes, b/w illus, xiii, 289pp, USA. HEINEMANN INC.

Kenyan writers reflect on the Buddhist philosopher, writer and poet's contribution to literature, culture and world peace. Refs, app, 159pp, KENYA. NAIROBI UNIVERSITY PRESS, 9966846492

2001 paperback

Third in a series of publications on art, culture and society by Twaweza Communications, aiming to bring to the fore conversations taking place in Kenya about identity, creativity, nationalism, the generation of knowledge and the pursuit of freedom through the arts, media and culture. Topics under discussion in this volume include: the Kenya National Theatre, story-telling, radio theatre, translation, performance in indigenous African languages, music, media and Mungiki, a politico-religious theatre group. 204pp, KENYA. TWAWEZA COMMUNICATIONS.

Argues that Ngugi wa Thiongo, who depicts and analyses many of the tensions associated with the colonization of East Africa by Europeans. A recipient of a Christianized education in Kenya, Ngugi was intensely familiar with the Old and New Testament Scriptures and of inconsistencies between the political policies of foreign-controlled imperial administrations and their lip-service to Christian beliefs. Argues that Ngugi’s grievances with the Western world in its dealings with East Africa focus on three major issues: cultural intrusion, political domination, and economic exploitation. The chronological unfolding of these sequential matters is vividly portrayed in his novels. 236pp, USA. EDWIN MELLEN PRESS.

Inaugural issue of the of the sensational Kenyan literary journal. 290pp, KENYA. KWANI TRUST.

Second issue of Kenya's literary journal showcasing the work of cutting edge writers, poets and cartoonists. This issue includes the Caine Prize shortlisted story by Parsalelo Kantai. 334pp, KENYA. KWANI TRUST.

New writing from Kenya (Binyavanga Wainaina, Muthoni Garland, Dayo Forster, Simiyu Barasa, Martin Mbugua Kimani and Karanja wa Njama) and further afield in Africa (Charles Mungoshi, M.G. Vassanji), as well as cartoons, photographs and artworks. 415pp, KENYA. KWANI TRUST.

Presents a wail of new voices in literary concert with the not so new, with contributions from Binyavanga Wainaina, Muthoni Garland and Doreen Bainganashare, as well as Billy Kahora, Mukoma wa Ngugi and Shalini Gidoomal. Delves deeper into the all those spaces where the Kenyan story lives: the street corners, the neighbourhood pubs, the in-between semi-rural places where the clash of cultures - the traditional versus the modern - continues to redefine the social roles of the individual. Also reaches into the burgeoning realms of the Kenyan blogosphere. 434pp, KENYA. KWANI TRUST.

Examines Kenya in the context and violent aftermath of its 2007 elections. Here, writers, photographers, poets, cartoonists meditate on what Kenyans were before, and what they became, during the epochal first 100 days of 2008. 408pp, KENYA. KWANI TRUST.

The struggle for independence in Kenya was waged at many levels. This book explores how this struggle was reflected in the communications field. It examines publishing activities of the main contending forces and explores the internal contradictions within each. It documents the major part played by the communications activities of the organised working class and Mau Mau in the achievement of independence in Kenya. Bib, index, app, 271pp, UK. VITA BOOKS.

The diary of the period when he was detained without trial in the 1970s. 232pp, UK. HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES.

1981 0435902407 Paperback

Elucidates significant themes in both Ngugi's critical and creative writings, and navigates the various critical responses to his writings, noting especially the di-verse reactions to his didactic allegorical fiction and his Marxist ideas on literature. notes, Refs, bib, index, xiii, 164pp, USA. TWAYNE PUBLISHERS.

Kamiriithu has attracted considerable critical attention over the last twenty-five years. This study examines its aesthetics, its ideology, its politics and its theoretical precepts to argue that although his activist theatre allowed Ngugi to close the gap between his subjects and audiences, that theatre was still haunted by a failure to find agents for change. In other words, the gap between the author's privileged positions (gender, class, ideological, ethno-national) and the subjects of his representation, between the dramaturgical modelling of social change and the impediments to social change. Ndigirigi concludes that the activist theatre was effective, rather than efficacious. Kamiriithu, he argues, represents a landmark in the development of Kenyan theatre, redefining its aesthetics and its politics and influencing a whole generation of practitioners. Index, bib, apps, notes, 308pp, USA. AFRICA WORLD PRESS.

This is the first comprehensive book-length study of gender politics in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's fiction. Brendon Nicholls argues that mechanisms of gender subordination are strategically crucial to Ngugi's ideological project from his first novel to his most recent one. Nicholls describes the historical pressures that lead Ngugi to represent women as he does, and shows that the novels themselves are symptomatic of the cultural conditions that they address. Reading Ngugi's fiction in terms of its Gikuyu allusions and references, a gendered narrative of history emerges that creates transgressive spaces for women. Nicholls bases his discussion on moments during the Mau Mau rebellion when women's contributions to the anticolonial struggle could not be reduced to a patriarchal narrative of Kenyan history, and this interpretive manoeu-vre permits a reading of Ngugi's fiction that accommodates female political and sexual agency. 232pp, UK. ASHGATE.

Ngugi is one of Africa's most famous writers. His writings have always been politically engaged, arguing a case for the poor and oppressed, not just in Africa but in the entire Third World. The conversations recorded here, spanning over 40 years, reflect his interest in exploring events in Kenya's colonial past that had such a profound impact on his own people, the Kikuyu, and ultimately on his own life. Ngugi's words aim to lead to a deeper understanding of colonial and postcolonial history. 376pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

A polemic on the political role of language in African literature, describing the political ramifications of writing African literature in the language of the coloniser. Index, notes, xii, 114pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS, 0852555016

The essays in this collection are concerned with moving the centre of power in two senses, between nations and within nations, in order to contribute to the freeing of world cultures from the restrictive walls of nationalism, class, race and gender. Index, xviii, 184pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

The Kenyan born novelist, now in exile, reflects on the writer's involvement in society. This is a new collection under an old title, including a recent piece written for the campaign to try to save Ken Saro Wiwa from execution. Most of the pieces that have been retained from the 1981 edition have been rewritten. Index, app, xvi, 167pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS, 0852555415

A collection of six provocative interviews with the Kenyan writers Wanjiku Kabira, Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, Leah Muya, Pat Ngurukie, Margaret Ogola and Grace Ogot. Dealing with expressions of women's fiction, domestic violence, polygamy and female genital mutilation, these discussions reveal new perspectives in African women's dis/empowerment. Index, notes, 177pp, KENYA. PJ KENYA.

Reflects of the historical models of Theatre for Development in Kenya, Ngugi's Kamiriitu project in the 1970s and the Nairobi Free Travelling Theatre in the 1980s, before examining TfD approaches since the 1990s. Index, bib, b/w photos, 201pp, GERMANY. BAYREUTH A S.

An analysis of the development of the Kenyan novel in English which emphasizes the historical contingencies affecting the production of literature in Kenya, and how succeeding generations have drawn from and expanded the thematic repertoire established by the first generation of works in the 1960s. The author has put together the first annotated bibliography of all the Anglophone Kenyan novels that have appeared since Weep Not Child. Index, bib, viii, 228pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS, 0852555504