Writing for Kenya : The Life and Works of Henry Muoria

Henry Muoria (1914-97), self-taught journalist and pamphleteer, helped to inspire Kenya's nationalisms before Mau Mau. The pamphlets reproduced here, in Gikuyu and English, contrast his own originality with the conservatism of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first President. The contributing editors introduce Muoria's political context, tell how three remarkable women sustained his families' life; and remember him as father. Courageous intellectual, political, and domestic life here intertwine.

Wangari Muoria-Sal, Diploma in Business Studies (RSA) 1974, North London College. For over 30 years an administrator for international aid organisations in Kenya, the Ivory Coast and Germany, and now Team Leader of the Student Support Office at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
Bodil Folke Frederiksen is Associate Professor of International Development Studies at Roskilde University with a special interest in the cultural history of Kenya. She has published articles on colonial and present-day media, urban leisure, youth culture and the localisation of global popular culture in East Africa.
John M Lonsdale, PhD (1964) in African History, University of Cambridge, has taught African history for 40 years and published on the social, religious and political history of Kenya, East Africa, and Africa.
Derek R. Peterson is Senior Lecturer in African History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of 'Creative Writing:
Translation, Bookkeeping, and the Work of Imagination in Colonial Kenya' (Heinemann, 2004).