ABSTRACT: Micere Mugo was Kenya's foremost poet, a forceful critic of her country's dictators, and coauthor—with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o—of the 1976 play The Trial of Dedan Kimathi . She was also the loving daughter of Senior Chief Richard Githae, who had, during the Mau Mau war of the 1950s, been a leading "loyalist" of the colonial government. Her early writing chronicled the social divisions of the Mau Mau war, displaying a humane sympathy for the choices her father had made. In 1976, though, Micere turned away from the humanistic work she had composed. Her play about the Mau Mau leader Kimathi made Kenya's history appear to be an archetypal struggle between good and evil, pitting heroic rebels against iniquitous colonial sellouts. At what personal and moral cost did Micere Mugo compose this work of radical theater? This article, written in her honor, examines her literature in relation to the sentimental bonds she struggled to maintain.
Derek Peterson (Mon,) studied this question.