Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, Gebunden

Klappentext

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This book offers a carefully curated collection of previously unpublished or hard-to-find essays written by this pioneering writer over a 50-year period.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.