The Trial of Dedan Kimathi

"This edition of The Trial of Dedan Kimathi by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Micere Githae Mugo tries to explain the play, especially to those who have no knowledge of Kenyan languages and an insufficient knowledge of Kenyan history. The play has songs and scattered exchanges in Kiswahili and Gikuyu. Moreover, while discussions on Ngugi wa Thiong'o, the most celebrated Kenyan writer of our time, have generally focused on his political engagements, his exile, his novels, a total understanding of the man and author remains crucially incomplete if his dramatic works are not fully attended to. The anti-imperialist cultural politics of the authors is emphasized here in the play's analysis; to re-write, to recover the real history of Kenya's liberation struggle was the inspired motive behind the play's writing; for the real history, the authors felt, was being suppressed and distorted by imperialists and their compradorial allies. Similar feelings were voiced by others in different corners of the Third World including India, in the 1970s about their own histories. Thus, understanding the play would be reading an interpretation of the world of the last hundred years shared by many of the authors contemporaries. The text and its companion working together offer and explain an alternative to western avant-garde dramatic construction."