“Narrating the nation”: Kenya’s past, present and future in the novels of Mwenda Mbatiah

Abstract

The article analyses the vision of Kenya’s recent history, its present and its foreseeable future as presented in several novels by Mwenda Mbatiah, one of the country’s leading writers of Swahili expression. In Mbatiah’s vision, Kenyan history appears as the “chain of heritage”, in which the mistakes and misdeeds of the past, such as the betrayal of the nation’s expectations in the early years of independence, have stipulated the emergence of the malfunctioning political and economic system in “Nyayo years”, which in its own turn may lead to an even more grim developments in the future. At the same time, the author offers a positive alternative, which he sees in the combined constructive effort of the people, - this, according to him, may even change the existing social structures for the better.