Urban Legends, Colonial Myths: Popular Culture and Literature in East Africa (review)

This collection of essays is the product of a larger research project led by Isabel Hofmeyer and James Ogude in the African Literature Department of Witwatersrand University, a collaborative and innovative enterprise well worth applauding. Despite its title, the book deals essentially with Kenya, and this is to be regretted since all the “Bongo flava” dynamism of present day Tanzania is left out. However, the emphasis on Kenya brings its own reward and provides an in-depth analysis of original cultural phenomena such as caricature and satire in the media, as well as the “Matatu” visual statements. One of the most interesting qualities of this book is that several Kenyan graduate students as well as young researchers took part in the project and give a special flair to the analysis of cultural phenomena. The book is divided into three sections; the main one focuses on popular media, while the other two deal with music and fiction.

In the first section, multimedia artists seldom mentioned in “formal” scholarly pieces are given ample recognition, thanks to an approach through “popular culture.” The entire approach is validated in the process, showing how these authors provide “deep commentary” into the workings of society. The “Kenyan journalist, humorist, literary writer” (to use Kimani Njogu’s words), Wahome Mutahi (1954–2003), is an original Nairobi writer: for more than twenty years before his death in 2003 he wrote a satirical newspaper column, “Whispers,” which (in the words of Nyairo and Ogude) became a “public space within the Kenyan social imaginary” (15, 79). “With the exception of God and disability, Wahome Mutahi could laugh at anything in life. He laughed at society, he laughed at the government and he laughed at his family—but he laughed at himself the hardest” (79), said a reviewer in the Daily Nation (July 23, 2003). His “world” is studied in an excellent chapter aptly titled “‘Christening Fiction’: Sermonising the Popular in ‘Whispers’” (79–96). Another paper titled “The Myriad Threads of Nairobi Matatu Discourse” (25–58) presents a convincing mixture of field work and hermeneutic analysis. Kenyan literature is taken seriously, as shown in the important analysis of Marjorie Macgoye in a chapter by Agnes Muriungi, “The (Re)Construction of Sexual Moralities in Popular Fiction” (281–306).

Bookshops are well stocked in Kenya; the readership is wide, and there are certainly Kenyan writers deserving serious analysis other than Ngũgĩ and Mazrui. The notion of “popular” means “read locally.” These works are very rewarding, as they apply to specific political contexts. Yet the section on music is disappointing, despite the quality of the contributors; what is lacking here is a specific socioeconomic analysis of the production of music and detailed reading and interpretation of the lyrics beyond general comments on Kenyan politics.

Other original features of the Kenyan press are singled out, such as the cartoons by Gado discussed in Grace Musila’s illuminating chapter “Democrazy: Laughter in Gado’s Editorial Cartoons (1992–1999),” which shows the range and effectiveness of insightful satirical commentary. Yet a very good question is asked at the end of this paper regarding “the relevance of Nyerere’s life and death to Kenyans, beyond being politically correct by mourning a fallen ‘leader’ and neighbour” (120). The editors should have taken the time to clarify this matter and to provide a clearer East African dimension to this interesting book.