| dc.description.abstract | This study sets out to investigate the phenomenon of political novel in Kenyan
Anglophone literature. The study is based on the presumption that typical features of the
Kenyan political novel are exemplified in the works of Wahome Mutahi (1954 - 2003).
Mutahi explored various issues of political life in three novels published before his death
in 2003 - Three Days on the Cross (1991), The Jailbugs (1992), and Doomsday (1999).
These three novels are the subject of the investigation.
Among the main tasks of the study is to find out whether the works under analysis
can be categorized as political novels. By analyzing and evaluating in the three chapters
the political issues raised in the three novels under study it was found out, that all the
works under study can be assuredly qualified as political novels, although the writer used
different methods in dealing with things political. In Three Days on the Cross, he reveals
the mechanisms of oppression induced by dictatorial regime in an African state through
the insightful description of the state police system; in Doomsday the writer presents the
penetrating view into the hidden machinery of political intrigue and plotting in an African
state where the totalitarian regime attempts to introduce some democratic changes; in The
Jailbugs the author metaphorically shows the totalitarian system of rule in an African
country through the penitentiary system. However, in all the novels mentioned, wider
political issues are thoroughly investigated, such as the nature of power, the use and
abuse of it, the ways to power, the impact of political systems upon various aspects of
social life in African countries, and many others. Using the classification of American
scholar Mary McCarthy and the definition of political novel created by the author of the
study, the study proves that all the three works qpder investigation can be qualified as
political novels of various types. Chapter 3 of the study also contains the analysis of some
stylistic aspects ofWahome Mutahi's works analysed in the study as typical stylistic
features of political novel in Kenya.
The concluding part of the study reveals some features ofWahome Mutahi's
works as being generally 1.U?!cal of the political novel in Kenya. First, many Kenyan
political novels are set in imaginary African countries, the main purpose being to show
the universality of the issues under description for the entire continent of Africa.
Secondly, Kenyan political novels do not openly give the reader the author's ideas of the
better political organisation of the society - the readers are provoked to visualize this
better society by themselves, by negating the vices of political systems described in the
novels. The concluding part also contains the data from the interviews with the readers,
showing the impact that the novels by Wahome Mutahi produced on them. Generally it is
concluded, that the Kenyan political novel, and the novels by Wahome Mutahi in
particular, serve the main purpose of increasing the awareness of the readers about the
political processes going on in their society, revealing the anti-social nature of political
power in Kenya, and on a larger scale, on the whole continent of Africa; and implicitly,
giving the readers the notion of progressive and socially beneficial power structures. | en |
