Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-colonial Kenya by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Barrel of a Pen is a collection of essays that vigorously responds to the atmosphere of repression and domination in Kenya. Ngũgĩ argues that the defense of national culture and national identity... Read more »

Why Are We So Blest? by Ayi Kwei Armah

What a farce, scholarships! The blood money never went to any of us for our intelligence. It was always payment for obedience. BEFORE THE WHITE MEN CAME. Ten pages of blood and... Read more »

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon

“‘Dirty nigger!'” or simply “Look! A Negro!”  I came into this world anxious to uncover the meaning of things, my soul desirous to be at the origin of the world, and here... Read more »

The Eloquence of the Scribes by Ayi Kwei Armah

This memoir on the ancient sources and future resources of African literature, by the author of Two Thousand Seasons, KMT, and other novels, gives colonial Africanist preconceptions of Africa’s literary heritage a... Read more »

Remembering the Dismembered Continent by Ayi Kwei Armah

1885, Berlin: European and American globalizers set up colonies that impoverished Africans by exporting raw resources to fuel European and American prosperity. 1960s: “Independent” Africa’s rulers, far from uniting Africa to create... Read more »

Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

In this volume, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o summarizes and develops a cross-section of the issues he has grappled with in his work, which uses a combination of imagery, language, folklore, and character to... Read more »

Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah

As we read Ayi Kwei Armah Two Thousand Seasons, two things immediately came to our minds: Akala’s track from his The Thieves Banquet album “Maangamizi”[1]Being so moved by this book, C-101 editors... Read more »

I Will Marry When I Want by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o & Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ

This is the play that was responsible for Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o being detained without trial (which was the impetus behind his book entitled Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary), and Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ... Read more »

Is Apartheid Really Dead? Pan Africanist Working Class Cultural Critical Perspectives by Julian Kunnie

Much euphoria has been expressed about the abolition of apartheid and the emergence of post-apartheid South Africa. Utilizing a Black Consciousness working-class philosophical framework, Is Apartheid Really Dead? takes sharp issue with... Read more »

Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Born in 1938 in rural Kenya, world renowned revolutionary writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o came of age in the shadow of World War II, amidst the terrible bloodshed in the war for national... Read more »