English in Kenya is a stable post-colonial variety that is used as an inter-ethnic lingua franca in private domains, is the medium of instruction as well as the language spoken in parliament and court rooms. Yet so far no comprehensive research monograph on Kenyan English has been published that surveys its characteristic linguistic features. The present book closes this gap by giving a full description of the characteristic linguistic features of Kenyan English. The book provides an in-depth overview of Kenyan English phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics and also gives a meticulous account of the diachronic evolution of this post-colonial variety.

Kenyan-born novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong’o and his collaborator, Micere Githae Mugo, have built a powerful and challenging play out of the circumstances surrounding the 1956 trial of Dedan Kimathi, the celebrated Kenyan hero who led the Mau Mau rebellion against the British colonial regime in Kenya and was eventually hanged. A highly controversial character, Kimathi’s life has been subject to intense propaganda by both the British government, who saw him as a vicious terrorist, and Kenyan nationalists, who viewed him as a man of great courage and commitment. Writing in the 1970s, the playwrights’ response to colonialist writings about the Mau Mau movement in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi is to sing the praises of the deeds of this hero of the resistance who refused to surrender to British imperialism. It is not a reproduction of the farcical “trial” at Nyeri. Rather, according to the preface, it is “an imaginative recreation and interpretation of the collective will of the Kenyan peasants and workers in their refusal to break under sixty years of colonial torture and ruthless oppression by the British ruling classes and their continued determination to resist exploitation,oppression and new forms of enslavement.”

A dictionary of real and invented words used by the world's best storyteller. 'Roald Dahl Dictionary' reveals what they mean, where they came from and how he used them in his stories. It will inspire you to choose and use each word brilliantly in your own writing - whether it's a real word, a Roald Dahl word or your own made-up one.

Ngugi wrote his first novels and plays in English but was determined, even before his detention without trial in 1978, to move to writing in Gikuyu.

This book is a collection of essays on Yvonne Owuor’s writings, mainly her most acclaimed novel, Dust as well as Dragonfly Sea and her short story “Weight of Whispers”. While the chapters in this book grapple with diverse themes, they generally converge on Owuor’s preoccupation with different forms of violence that has dominated Kenya’s postcolonial experiences, especially those around the politics of power and the roles of regional, ethnic, and gender identities in influencing such politics. Many of the chapters in this book problematize the violence of genocide, trauma, and flight as they are variously and singularly underpinned by silences that signal the failure of adequate avenues for articulation of what impact such violence has on its victims. Other chapters focus on the style of Owuor’s writing, thereby highlighting the many literary innovations that Owuor crafts in order to effectively carry the weight of her concerns. This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of Literature, Politics, History, and Sociology. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies.