Mau Mau Memoirs: History, Memory, and Politics

The still contentious issues of the Mau Mau revolt are thrown into stark relief by the Mau Mau Memoirs, personal accounts by Kenyans of the events of that violent period. Marshall Clough deftly analyzes these memoirs, making a strong case for not only their historical value, but also their role in the struggle to define Mau Mau within Kenyan historiography and politics. Systematically studying thirteen memoirs as a group, as a kind of "discourse" about the revolt, Clough demonstrates that the recollections of their authors--whose experiences ranged from organizing the secret movement, to supplying the guerrillas, to active fighting, to resistance in the British detention camps--serve to refute both the British version of the revolt and that of the leaders of the independent Kenyan state. They also point unequivocally to the importance of Mau Mau in the making of modern Kenya.--