Writing for Kenya The Life and Works of Henry Muoria

Summary

Henry Muoria (1914-1997), self-taught journalist, pamphleteer and newspaper proprietor, was one of the most influential voices in the first era of Kenyan nationalism after the Second World War. His pamphlets, a selection of which is reproduced here in both English and Gikuyu, show both his own originality of thought and the more conservative views of Jomo Kenyatta (later to become the first President of Kenya), for whom Muoria acted as unofficial press officer. While one of the contributors' chapters provides the intellectual and political context of these texts from the almost-forgotten but formative 1940s, another studies Henry Muoria's family life, especially the courage and endurance of his three wives, while a third remembers him as father. Intellectual, political and domestic life here intertwine. Source: Publisher