Menu Expand
Land, Freedom and Fiction

Land, Freedom and Fiction

David Maughan Brown | Stephen Clingman

(2017)

Abstract

This now classic work examines the contrasting ways in which the Mau Mau struggle for land and independence in Kenya was mirrored, and usually distorted, by successive generations of English and white Kenyan authors, as well as by indigenous Kenyan novelists. Against the turbulent background of the Mau Mau Uprising, Dr Maughan-Brown explores the relationship between history, literary creation and the myths that societies cultivate. Spanning the breadth of colonial and post-colonial African literature, his subjects range from the colonialist authors Robert Ruark and Elspeth Huxley to the post-independence novels of Meja Mwangi and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.
Maughan-Brown's book is invaluable on many levels. He presents a concise account of the uprising and its place in Kenyan identity, and significantly increases our understanding of settler attitudes and the role of literature within colonial ideology. Land, Freedom and Fiction succeeds in showing the subtle insights a materialist approach can bring to the study of literature, ideology and society. 
Professor David Maughan-Brown is the former Deputy Vice Chancellor of York St John University. Brought up in East Africa and educated in South Africa, he previously lectured in the Department of English at the University of Natal

‘A book extraordinarily attuned to the impress of history, politics and ideology upon literature… This, in other words, is a major study, the kind that lasts.’
Stephen Clingman, from the Foreword


Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover Cover
About the Author iii
Title Page v
Copyright vi
Contents ix
Foreword by Stephen Clingman xi
Preface and Acknowledgements xv
1. Introduction 1
Ideology 4
Literary Theory 11
2. 'Mau Mau' as a Historical Phenomenon 20
Problems of Definition 20
'Causes' of the Revolt 23
Origins and Organisation of the 'Mau Mau' and History of the Oath 30
Conduct of the Campaign: 'Mau Mau Atrocities' and State and Settler Repression 36
Social Composition of the 'Mau Mau' Movement 41
Towards a Categorical Definition of the Movement 46
Ideologies of the History of 'Mau Mau' 49
The Colonial Interpretation and 'Mau Mau' Oathing Ceremonies 49
Post-Independence Accounts: 'Mau Mau' Autobiographies and 'Progressive' and 'Reactionary' Nationalist Interpretations 56
3. Kenyan Colonial Settler Ideology 66
The Colonial Economy as a Determinant of Settler Ideology 66
Colonial Settler Ideology in its Aspect as Metropolitan Export 74
Colonial Settler Race Ideology: Myths and Stereotypes 77
Kenyan Colonial Settler Ideology as a Variant of Fascist Ideology 93
Terminology of Colonial Accounts of 'Mau Mau' 97
4. Nothing of Value: Colonial Fiction about 'Mau Mau' 106
Fiction as Propaganda and the Settler Novelists 106
The Embodiment in Fiction of Colonial Myths About 'Mau Mau' 114
Fictional Devices Used in Propounding Colonial Settler Ideology 127
The Fiction's Rendering Visible of the Ideological Structures of Colonial Fascism 136
5. 'Plus fa Change ...': Liberal Fiction from the Metropolis 157
The Effect of Settler Propaganda on the Metropolitan Image of 'Mau Mau' 157
The 'Liberal' Fiction 163
6. Economy, Politics and Ideology in Post-Independence Kenya 183
From Colonial to Neo-Colonial Economy 184
Key Components of the Dominant Ideology: 'Unity', the Kenyatta Myth, and the Rejection of 'Mau Mau' 190
7. Novels of the 'Freedom' 206
Post-Independence Fiction as Praise-Song to the 'Leader' 208
Further Resemblances to the Colonial Fiction: The Aesthetics of 'Balance' and the Politics of Contempt 218
8. Not Yet the Freedom 230
The Changing Image of 'Mau Mau' in Ngugi's Novels 230
A Grain of Wheat as the Exemplary 'Crisis Text' 247
Conclusion 258
Bibliography 266
Index 275