He came, he saw, he conquered. His books came in slim editions — lean, unpretentious, devastating. He was quietly fierce, as if he was silently cradling a roaring flame.
“Art is a mirror but only if you have the stomach to look” seems to have been his mantra.
These words aptly portray David Mulwa, who passed away on Friday, December 5, 2025. Mulwa held an uncomfortable mirror to our faces and forced us to look at what we didn’t want to see about ourselves.
I had the privilege of having him in the stable of authors under the banner of Oxford University Press East Africa (OUPEA) when I headed the company that had published (long before I joined) some of his works like Glass Houses (1991), We Come in Peace (1995) and Clean Hands (1995).
As an avid reader, I had seen his author photo years earlier before my time at OUP. In the famed author photos, stylised black-and-white portraits rendered in minimalist and abstract aesthetic, his facial features were defiant — deep lines, bushy brows, downturned lips, and eyes that expressed intensity — simplified into bold, expressive strokes, shadowed like a charcoal drawing. The photos seemed to catch the light, evoking reverence and mystery.
What I didn’t know was that beyond the author photos, David Mulwa was many things — teacher, director, mentor — but his real thrill seemed to be live performance: the heat of the lights, the twitch in the crowd, the knowledge that probably each line might be his last if he pushed too hard against the state in the days of authoritarian rule. This separated him from many other writers because he not only wrote plays but also “performed his own words”.
David Mulwa also acted in and produced stage adaptations of Francis Imbuga’s Aminata and Wole Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest . His influence extended into other areas, becoming a respected adjudicator at schools and colleges drama festivals, shaping generations of thespians. Mulwa also took roles on TV and in movies such as Dangerous Affairs and Behind Closed Doors.
One of the most popular works by Mulwa is Inheritance (Longhorn Publishers, 2004), which became a high school set book. It is about the themes of individuality and development, set in a pre-colonial African context, exploring conflicts between Africans and white settlers regarding land inheritance and leadership.
The late Kenyan thespian, writer and university lecturer David Mulwa.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Inheritance is a satirical play that lays bare the destructive flaws of its central character, Lacuna Kasoo, ruler of the fictional Kutula Republic. Like the mythical kings of Greek legend who had hubris and became so intoxicated with power that they mocked God and disregarded their fellow human beings, Lacuna is portrayed as a leader whose arrogance, greed, and corruption ultimately lead to his downfall.
Apart from these plays, Mulwa wrote many others. One of the most surprising things was that Mulwa could write plays in both English and Kiswahili. He wrote several plays in Kiswahili, expanding his reach beyond English-language theatre. Some of his notable Kiswahili titles (co-authored with the legendary A.S Yahya) include: Buriani , Ukame and Mkimbizi .
At the philosophical level, David Mulwa’s plays mirror the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, particularly his conviction that suffering is not simply an obstacle to happiness but a necessary condition for authentic existence. In Inheritance , Mulwa highlights the suffering of the people of Kutula Republic under the tyranny of Lacuna Kasoo.
Questions about social justice
Their poverty, betrayal, and oppression become the vessel in which a new consciousness is formed. Just as Kierkegaard insisted that despair could lead to deeper faith, Mulwa shows that collective suffering becomes the catalyst for revolution and new things.
Mulwa’s characters often face tough choices touching on their very existence that mirror Kierkegaard’s emphasis on individual responsibility in the face of overwhelming odds. In plays such as Redemption, characters must decide whether to compromise with corrupt people or embrace integrity, even at great personal danger.
Mulwa’s theatre, like Kierkegaard’s philosophy, insists that despair is not the end and that there is always hope. In Clean Hands, betrayal and corruption are confronted with moral courage as proof of the possibility of change. Kierkegaard described despair as the “sickness unto death,” but also as the condition that can lead one to real faith. Mulwa’s plays embody this paradox: suffering and despair are the root from which hope and transformation grow.
Like in Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy, Mulwa insists that authentic existence is born out of suffering, and this requires courage and hope to succeed in rising above despair.
With his contemporaries Ezekiel Alembi and Francis Imbuga, David Mulwa served as a lecturer in the Department of Literature at Kenyatta University, and the trio’s careers overlapped there. They became Titans of Kenyan literature, having written almost every angle of Kenyan society dry. They remind one of a golden time of literature, a less desperate time now lost in the cacophony of our politics and other sharpening anxieties.
Mulwa asked many questions about life, social justice and other issues that affect us and, like most writers, the answers never formed fully, hiding in the pauses, in the long shadows of a theatre after the curtain falls. And now the curtain of Mulwa’s life has fallen, and in these empty moments, one can almost hear the voice of the old teacher, still instructing, still challenging, still waiting behind the curtains.
