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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | The organic vernacular intellectual in Kenya: Gakaara wa Wanjau |
| Author: | Pugliese, Cristiana |
| Year: | 1994 |
| Periodical: | Research in African Literatures |
| Volume: | 25 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 177-187 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | Kikuyu literature |
| About person: | Gakaara wa Wanja~u |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3819874 |
| Abstract: | The Kenyan writer Gakaara wa Wanjau (born in 1921) started writing in the mid-forties and since then he has published a number of booklets relating to Gikuyu customs, culture, and language and recent Kenyan history. Gakaara's works are examples of a highly independent and spontaneous literature. He never belonged to the academic circle and, from the very beginning of his career as a writer, he has published his own books. In 1948 he wrote his first political pamphlet and in 1952 he started a nationalist magazine. He was arrested later in 1952 and released in 1959. In the sixties he became a 'popular' author, writing for those Gikuyu who were not likely to be attracted to the books written by the other major writer in Gikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiong'o. In 1980, when Ngugi learned about the diary that Gakaara had written in prison in the fifties, he encouraged him to submit his manuscript to Heinemann Kenya. The diary was published in Gikuyu in 1983 and in English in 1988. Both editions were strongly 'edited', as Gakaara's moderate political views were totally unacceptable to those Kenyans who had pressed for the publication of his diary in order to further their interpretation of Mau Mau as a nationalist and revolutionary movement. In 1986 Gakaara was arrested again. He is now facing serious financial difficulties and the closing down of Gakaara Press would mean the end of the only independent Gikuyu literature in Kenya. Bibliogr., notes, ref. (An earlier version of this article appeared in French in: Politique africaine, no. 51 (1993), p. 98-109.) |
