Mama Shujaa

A first look at the memoir of Kenya's pioneer writer Rebeka Njau , author of The Sacred Seed , Books Horizon (2003), Ripples In The Pool , Heinemann (1978) and The Scar (1965) . Here is the first chapter of her soon to be completed memoir. In Quest of Justice, a Memoir by Rebeka Njau Chapter One WHEN I decided to write the story of my life, I struggled to find the best way to express my deep and complex emotions. Finally, in memory of the poetry of my earlier years as a writer, I chose to open this memoir with the following lines: My ears are plugged up By poisonous spittle of a grimy tongue; Times without number, Little birds have been twittering, joyfully at my backyard, But I cannot hear them. Falsity, scattered like seeds Everywhere I tread, Has driven me to extreme bitterness and pain, Making me feel powerless to forgive and forget. Like a piece of rock that stands on its own, I stand alone beside a sweet-scented bush To ease my heav...

("Saving For Old Age," by my father Elimo Njau, co-founder of Paa Ya Paa Creative Arts Center in Nairobi (in the 1960s and it is still standing today). ) It does not matter whether or not we are among those who let it happen. We are all guilty. Actors and spectators. Eye-witnesses and plunderers. We recognize each other in our indifference, our slow poison, our greed for power. African First Lady So-and-so, Professor of this-and-that. We profess our concern for the enterprise and culture of Africa. Tell me, modern day Judas Iscariots, what have you done with the joy and the power of the land? Witness, as the people of Mayotte, voted to be recolonized by France . A vote, of no-confidence in Africa’s independent future. The death, of a sovereign nation, the despair in a continent wrought by corruption, cruelty and brutality. A harbinger of future recolonizations in Africa. It is my prayer that Africa is liberated from the human tragedy playing out, fashioned by th...

As a child I often wished I could climb the Ma u Mau Freedo m Fighter behind our home. If Samwel Wanjau had carved a flight of steps up the back of a leg, I would have ascended the twelve feet to the fierce dreadlocks, and settled a few scores. " I'm the king of the castle, You're the dirty rascal. I'm the king of the castle, Get down, you dirty rascal !" The taunt, directed at my older brother, would have penetrated the canopy of eucalyptus trees and instilled the fear of god into the bullies of Ridgeways Estate. Instead, I climbed the Jacaranda tree in front of the house and daydreamed amidst clusters of fragrant, purple, trumpet-shaped blooms... If Wanjau had carved an aesthetically "palatable" symbol of Kenya's fight for independence, as he was commissioned, the Mau Mau Freedom Fighter would be standing in front of the Kenya Parliament building today, celebrating forty-five years of independence from British colonial rule. Instead, Wanjau conv...