Land, Freedom and Fiction

David Maughan-Brown’s authoritative work on the Mau Mau Uprising during the 1950s in Kenya, examines how the Mau Mau struggle for land and independence has been mirrored, and often distorted, in accounts by English and white Kenyan writers, as well as by indigenous Kenyan novelists. Against the turbulent background of the Mau Mau Uprising, 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. 

By presenting a concise account of the uprising and its place in Kenyan identity, Land, Freedom and Fiction significantly increases our understanding of settler attitudes and the role of literature within colonial ideology.