Preface and Acknowledgements

This book derives from a D. Phil. dissertation written for the University of Sussex. Its topic was chosen because it enabled me to focus simultaneously on a number of literary, political and cultural concerns which are not only of particular importance to South Africa in the 1980s but are relevant to all societies in which racial prejudice is endemic, such as Great Britain. Chief among these concerns were the relationship between fiction and ideology, the use that is made of fiction as an instrument of propaganda, the way race myths and stereotypes are embodied in fiction and the continuing place ‘Mau Mau’ has as a reference point for race myths. This last is particularly relevant to South Africa, where support for the ideology of apartheid is still, in 1985, bolstered by race myths identical to those which provided the Kenyan settlers with their justification for their presence and behaviour in Kenya in 1952, and where, apart from strategies for repression, nothing whatever appears to have been learnt from the experiences of Kenya in the 1950s and Zimbabwe in the 1960s and 1970s.

In revising the dissertation for publication my main concern has been to simplify the terminology appropriate to an academic thesis in order to make the argument accessible to as wide an audience as possible without losing such cogency as it may have. It has, however, seemed necessary to retain most of the Introduction in its original form, largely because any adoption of Althusserian terminology or concepts remains so contentious – particularly, ironically, on the embattled academic Left in South Africa.

But readers who do not feel inclined to subject themselves to discussions of the theory of ideology or literary theory may well wish to skip the sections headed ‘Ideology’ and ‘Literary Theory’ in the Introduction. Understanding of the argument in the rest of the book should not be dependent on having read the Introduction in its entirety, and it is always possible to return to the Introduction after reading the rest of the book.

Earlier versions of parts of this book have appeared as articles in various journals. Parts of chapters 2 and 3 were drawn on for ‘Myth and the “Mau Mau”’ in Theoria, 54 (1980), pp. 59–85. Part of chapter 4 appeared as ‘Nothing of Value: Robert Ruark on “Mau Mau”’ in Africa Perspective, 16 (1980), pp.42–60. Parts of chapters 6, 7 and 8 have been combined in an article for the May 1985 special Ngugi issue of Research in African Literatures: ‘Four Sons of One Father: A comparison of Ngugi’s earliest novels with works by Mwangi, Mangua and Wachira’. An earlier draft of parts of chapter 8 was published as ‘“Mau Mau” and violence in Ngugi’s novels’ in English in Africa, 8, 2 (1981), pp. 1–22. Where permission has been required for republication I am grateful to the editors of those journals for that permission.

This book owes its single greatest intellectual debt to my supervisor at Sussex, Adrian Crewe, so many of whose suggestions, and sometimes even formulations, were adopted as to bring him perilously close to the dubious distinction of rating as a co-author. Without Adrian’s knowledge of the general fields of African literature and materialist cultural theory this would not have taken the direction it has: without his painstakingly thorough comments on earlier drafts this would not have achieved such shape and concision as it has: and without his general encouragement and friendship the dissertation grind would have been much more laborious than it was.

I am grateful to Tony Voss, John Wright, Trish Gibbon, Michael Vaughan, Colin Gardner, Don Beale, Glenn Lawson, Nick Visser, Malcolm McKenzie and Jill Arnott who have all helped me either practically, by way of comments on earlier drafts, proof-reading, etc., or by their general encouragement and support. I would also like to record my thanks to Geraldine Goodacre for very many hours of patient, skillful and good-humoured typing. The faults and weaknesses in this book are, of course, entirely my responsibility.

I am indebted to the University of Natal Research Committee for a research grant which enabled me to travel to Nairobi and the once supposedly ‘White’ Highlands to tie up some loose ends of my research.

This project has been greatly assisted by the support, both material and otherwise, of my parents, and also of my parents-in-law, Mr and Mrs R.O.Lacey, for which I am very grateful. Finally, this would have been far more difficult without the tolerance of my sons, Anthony and Brendan, and would have been quite impossible without the loving support, patience and assistance of my wife Susan.

D. A. Maughan-Brown