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\"In this book, Evan Maina Mwangi assembles a wide range of contemporary texts to explore the interface of postcolonial writing, posthuman theory, and human-animal studies in Africanist contexts. Topics include the engagement with animals in indigenous ethics; representations of animals in modern texts based on African folklore; treatments of insects and small animals in African art; interspecies sex; and the deployment of animals as narrators and narrative agents. The book also considers animals as cultural signifiers of class, race, gender, and sexuality in works from Africa and its black diaspora. The book demonstrates that the human is not separated from other agencies in the universe, making it a central feature of the way African writers represent animals in literary texts. Writers discussed include such well-known artists and intellectuals such as Nuruddin Farah, Ngنugنi wa Thiong'o, J.M. Coetzee, Charles Mungoshi, Jan Carew, and Zakes Mda. Emergent or less-discussed writers like Yuda Komora, Henry ole Kulet, Grace Ogot, Patrice Nganang, and Rebecca Nandwa are also given consideration. Repurposing Rosi Braidotti and other theorists of posthumanism, Mwangi advocates an egalitarian ethics in its unconditional acceptance of nonhuman others for their authenticity in being what they are\"--Provided by publisher.

East African music aligns itself with nationalistic desires while attempting to create a transnational and regional agenda that goes beyond individual nation-states. Hip-hop music appears at pains to define itself as different from the western art-forms with which it is hastily associated by instantiating localized forms and creating a different locution. This paper surveys East African hip-hop to demonstrate that the music is a productive site upon which the local, the national, and the global contest and negotiate. We demonstrate that central to the music's identity politics is the notion of masculinity, in which the construction of community is interpreted as a masculine enterprise. The audiences also invest the music with political and nationalist meanings that are fraught with sexualized readings. On the whole, the music rejects hostile nationalism but male artists tend to represent women negatively in their grand national, regional, and pan-African projects. Indirectly indicating the depth of the hegemonic masculinism they operate under, women artistes express a desire to deconstruct male constructs. At the same time they suggest that, in spite of themselves, their critique has to be cautious and subtle.

The profound effects of colonialism and its legacies on African cultures have led postcolonial scholars of recent African literature to characterize contemporary African novels as, first and foremost, responses to colonial domination by the West. In Africa Writes Back to Self, Evan Maina Mwangi argues instead that the novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over emergent gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated governments. He covers the work of canonical novelists Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, NguÅgiÅ wa Thiong'o, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as popular writers such as Grace Ogot, David Maillu, Promise Okekwe, and Rebeka Njau. Mwangi examines the novels' self-reflexive fictional strategies and their potential to refigure the dynamics of gender and sexuality in Africa and demote the West as the reference point for cultures of the Global South.

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945 challenges the conventional belief that the English-language literary traditions of East Africa are restricted to the former British colonies of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Instead, these traditions stretch far into such neighboring countries as Somalia and Ethiopia. Simon Gikandi and Evan Mwangi assemble a truly inclusive list of major writers and trends. They begin with a chronology of key historical events and an overview of the emergence and transformation of literary culture in the region. Then they provide an alphabetical list of major writers and brief descriptions of their concerns and achievements. Some of the writers discussed include the Kenyan novelists Grace Ogot and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ugandan poet and essayist Taban Lo Liyong, Ethiopian playwright and poet Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Tanzanian novelist and diplomat Peter Palangyo, Ethiopian novelist Berhane Mariam Sahle-Sellassie, and the novelist M. G. Vassanji, who portrays the Indian diaspora in Africa, Europe, and North America. Separate entries within this list describe thematic concerns, such as colonialism, decolonization, the black aesthetic, and the language question; the growth of genres like autobiography and popular literature; important movements like cultural nationalism and feminism; and the impact of major forces such as AIDS/HIV, Christian missions, and urbanization. Comprehensive and richly detailed, this guide offers a fresh perspective on the role of East Africa in the development of African and world literature in English and a new understanding of the historical, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries of the region.

In November 1949 D.D.T. Jabavu, the South African politician and professor of African languages at Fort Hare University, set out on a four-month trip to attend the World Pacifist Meeting in India. He wrote an isiXhosa account of his journey which was published in 1951 by Lovedale Press. This new edition republishes the travelogue in the original isiXhosa, with an English translation by the late anthropologist Cecil Wele Manona. The travelogue contains reflections on Jabavu’s social interactions during his travels, and on the conference itself, where he considered what lessons Gandhian principles might yield for South Africans engaged in struggles for freedom and dignity. His commentary on non-violent resistance, and on the dangers of nationalism and racism, enriches the existing archive of intellectual exchanges between Africa and India from a black South African perspective. The volume includes chapters by the editors that examine the networks of international solidarity – from post-independence India to the anti-colonial struggle in East Africa and the American civil rights movement – which Jabavu helped to strengthen, biographical sketches of Jabavu and of Manona, and an afterword that reflects on the historical and political significance of making African-language texts available to readers across Africa.In November 1949, Davidson Don Tengo (D.D.T.) Jabavu, the South African politician, Methodist lay preacher and retired professor of African languages and Latin at Fort Hare University in the Eastern Cape, set out on a four-month trip to attend the World Pacifist Meeting in India. The conference brought together delegates from over thirty countries to reflect on how Mahatma Gandhi’s life and teachings could inform pacifist work in the post-World War II era. Jabavu wrote an isiXhosa account of his journey up the east coast of Africa and to different parts of India which was first published in 1951 by Lovedale Press. His narrative contains wide-ranging reflections on the fauna and flora of the changing landscape, on intriguing social interactions during his travels, and on the conference itself, where he considered what lessons Gandhian principles might yield for oppressed South Africans engaged in struggles for freedom and dignity. He incorporates accounts of chance meetings with important figures of post-independence India and of the anti-colonial struggle in East Africa, as well as with members of the American civil rights movement. His commentary on non-violent resistance, and on the dangers of nationalism when coupled with militarism and racism, enriches the existing archive of intellectual and political exchange between Africa and India from a black South African perspective. This new edition includes Jabavu’s travelogue in the original isiXhosa, with an English translation by the late anthropologist Cecil Wele Manona. Tina Steiner’s introductory chapter examines the networks of international solidarity and friendship that Jabavu helped to strengthen in the course of his travels. A chapter by Mhlobo W. Jadezweni, whose updating of the original isiXhosa orthography has made Jabavu’s text accessible to new generations of readers, considers the richness of Jabavu’s isiXhosa style as a contribution to the archive of great African-language literature. Catherine Higgs provides biographical sketches of D.D.T. Jabavu and Cecil Wele Manona which situate this travelogue within the broader context of their lives. Evan M. Mwangi’s Afterword is a reflection on the historical and political significance of making African-language texts available to readers across Africa.

Although scholars have noted the rising potentials for democracy in Africa as a result of increased use of digital media and mobile technologies, there seems to be a disregard or disavowal of queerness as part of that growing democratic space, as well as a related tendency to regard African culture solely in terms of mainstream writing and journalism. This article seeks to bridge this gap in the scholarship by means of a discourse analysis of comments about queer identities that can be found in the digital media (Facebook, chat rooms, blogs, YouTube comments, and online newspaper feedback) in contemporary Kenya. Following work on queer arts and “low” theory, the article explores the possibilities offered by the Internet to challenge homophobia in Kenya. While acknowledging that digital-media venues contain more homophobia than mainstream media (books, television, newspapers) in terms of intensity and quantity, the article demonstrates that they also offer a unique platform in which gay people can respond to homophobic representations of their experiences and desires. Bien que les chercheurs ont noté la hausse d’un potentiel démocratique en Afrique grâce à l'utilisation accrue des médias numériques et des technologies mobiles, il semble y avoir une méconnaissance ou un désaveu de la culture gay dans le cadre de cet espace démocratique croissant, ainsi qu’une tendance liée à considérer la culture africaine uniquement en termes du journalisme et des écrits grand-publique. Cet article vise à combler cette lacune au moyen d'une analyse discursive des commentaires sur les identités gay qui peuvent être lus dans les médias numériques (Facebook, forums de discussion, blogs, commentaires YouTube, et commentaires de la presse en ligne) dans le Kenya contemporain. Suite à des travaux sur les arts gay et la théorie situationniste de la production de connaissance en dehors des institutions, l'article explore les possibilités offertes par l'Internet pour contester l'homophobie au Kenya. Tout en reconnaissant que les sites de médias numériques contiennent plus d'homophobie que les médias traditionnels (livres, télévision, journaux) en termes d'intensité et de quantité, l'article montre qu’ils offrent également une plateforme unique où les homosexuels peuvent répondre aux représentations homophobes de leurs expériences et de leurs désirs.

This paper concerns the simultaneous and contradictory conceptions of Kenyan history by rereading popular representations of the Mau Mau war of Kenyan independence and its postindependence consequences. It examines twenty-first-century evocations and appropriations of Mau Mau in relation to earlier discourses in literature and politics. It discovers that contemporary artists and citizens deploy references to Mau Mau outside of its historical context to address, in highly emotive language, contemporary problems in Kenya, such as runaway corruption and police brutality. It reads emergent artists and writers against the background of more dominant and canonical work to demonstrate the evolution of popular memory and the need to consider everyday, marginal, and liminal texts in a postcolonial context where the perspectives of ordinary people are excluded from official archives.

This essay examines the adaptation and translation of Sembene Ousmane's novella The Money-Order (originally published in French in 1966 as Le mandat) into \"Hawala ya Fedha\" (1980), a Kiswahili play by the Tanzanian woman dramatist Amandina Lihamba. Drawing on the contemporary theories of translation and adaptation that demote fidelity to the original as the cornerstone of translation, I demonstrate that the changes that Lihamba introduces in her text do not result from the incommensurability among the languages involved (Wolof, French, English, and Kiswahili), the muchvaunted clash of civilizations, or the supposed incompatibility between the two genres (novel and play); rather, she is invested in amplifying gender issues in Sembene's novel through a popular public medium to signify the urgent need for women's literacy in Julius Nyerere's Tanzania.

One of the first things i noticed on landing in my hometown of nairobi, kenya, for summer vacation this year was the continued proliferation of new-style music that undermines traditional ties with the solid rural identities seen previously as quintessential manifestations of patriotism and African racial pride. Radios in duty-free shops at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport were tuned to various FM stations, which issued beats that were a cross between Western hip-hop and traditional village music. Notable were the songs' calls for dissolving the boundaries between East African countries—namely, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

In this paper, I consider the narrative in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Devil on the Cross against a largely ignored preface in the Gikuyu edition of the novel Caitaani Mutharaba-ini, and against the conventions of the gicaandi art that the novel invokes. Focusing on the interimplication of gender and orality in the story, I employ cultural narratology as my framework to examine the dialogic relationship between the novel's formal features and their cultural contexts, especially the gendered implications of the oral narrative strategies that Ngugi deploys to frame the narrative. I argue that, contrary to most readings of the novel, the \"gicaandi\" oral artist who frames the story is unreliable, and the text provokes the reader to see his presentation as incomplete and contradictory. When the preface is considered, and the narrator subjected to tests of reliability, the oral narrator's account comes through not only as totalized and teleological but also as shot through with imperatives of hegemonic masculinity that call for a challenging voice as required by the protocols of the gicaandi art-form that this frame narrator conjures up. Although the preface is paratextual, untranslated, and consigned to the margins of the narrative, its consideration in the analysis of the text offers new ways of unpacking the gendered dimensions of Ngugi's use of oral techniques. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]