Cultural Archives of Atrocity : Essays on the Protest Tradition in Kenyan Literature, Culture and Society

"Studies on the aesthetic representations of atrocity the world over have taken different discursive dimensions from history, sociology, political to human rights. These perspectives are usually geared towards understanding the manifestations, extent, political and economic implications of atrocities. In all these cases, representation has been the singular concern. Cultural Archives of Atrocity: Essays on the Protest Tradition in Kenyan Literature, Culture and Society brings together generic ways of interrogating artistic representations of atrocity in Kenya. Couched on interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches, essays in this volume investigate representations of Atrocity in Kenyan Literature, Film, Popular Music and other mediated cultural art forms. Contributors to this volume not only bring on board multiple and competing perspectives on studying atrocity and how they are archived but provide refreshing and valuable insights in examining the artistic and cultural interpellations of atrocity within the socio-political imaginaries of the Kenyan nation. This volume forms part of the growing critical resources for scholars undertaking studies on atrocity within the fields of ethnic studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, peace and conflict, criminology, psychology, political economy and history in Kenya"--Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements List of Contributors Foreword Introduction: Conceptualizing Representations of Atrocity in Art PART 1 Representations of Atrocity in the Contemporary Kenyan Novel 1 Narrating trauma in Yvonne Owuor’s Dust 2 An Eco-critical Reading of Voice of the People and Different Colours 3 Locating Bodies, Embodying Resistance in Wahome Mutahi’s Jail Bugs and Three Days on the Cross 4 Derision, Delirium, and Denied Justice in Benjamin Garth Bundeh’s Birds of Kamiti 5 Socio-economic Atrocities in Meja Mwangi’s Going Down River Road and Kinyanjui Kombani’s The Last Villains of Molo 6 Symbolism of Human Relations in Kenyan Narratives of Ethnic Violence 7 Sycophants in a Cannibal State: Kenya in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow 8 Mediating the Vicious Cycle of Political Atrocities in Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Wizard of the Crow 9 Gender-based Atrocity in Kenyan Urban Women’s Novel after 2000 10 Reading the Politics of Violence and Impunity in Pango and Kufa Kuzikana 11 Political Atrocity in Kenyan Swahili Novel after the Year 2000 PART 2 Narrating Mau Mau Violence and trauma in the Kenyan Novel 12 Textual Subversion in the Representation of Mau Mau Atrocities in Settler Writing in Kenya 13 Grotesque Images of Colonial and Mau Mau Violence in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not, Child and A Grain of Wheat 14 Emergency-era trauma in Ngũgĩ wa thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat PART 3 Representations of Atrocity in Popular Arts 15 Between Fait Accompli and Eruptions of Violence: The Kenyan Social Imaginary in Selected Stories of Kwani?05 16 Confronting National Pain and Suffering through Judy Kibinge’s Feature Film, Something Necessary 17 Screening Violence and Reconciliation: The Production and Circulation of Films about the Kenyan Post-election Violence of 2007/2008 18 Bestial Zoosemic Labelling in Kenyan Political Songs: A Conceptual Metaphor Perspective 19 Reading Kalenjin Popular Music as a Gem of Ethnic Violence PART 4 Representations of Atrocity in Kenyan Poetry 20 Repression in the Poetry of Jared Angira 21 Swahili Poetry and Atrocity in Postcolonial Kenya: Accounts of three Kiswahili Poets Index