Marjorie and the coming to birth of Kenyan literature

If Ngugi wa Thiong’o is the father of Kenyan fiction, then Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye was the mother figure of Kenyan literature. While straddling the literary landscape like a colossus, our vision to see Marjorie’s central place was blurred. When I reflect on the debates on pertinent issues that we continuously grapple with on Kenyan literature, I do not see her position prominently elucidated.

When I received the news of the passing on of Marjorie, I did a simple survey amongst colleagues in departments of literature and cultural studies, just to establish if her books feature prominently on our university curricular. This survey revealed that she sits on the periphery. I called 10 journalists in both print and electronic media and none seemed to have read Marjorie. Two of them confessed they encountered her Coming to Birth as a school text at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education.

If this newspaper is the platform that mediates our conversations on literature and cultural studies, then it mirrors the reality that obtains in the lecture theatres and classrooms.

It is true that our literary conversations have assumed variegated, albeit, violent dimensions of scholarly output. Though they are intellectually stimulating, they have not inspired introspection on critical theory. I remember Marjorie admonishing us sometime in the 1990s for what she saw as a lack of a clear cut direction and “inability to see ourselves”. It is true that we have inspired interest in literature, but we have not inspired change of direction and influenced policy on cultural matters. We are at best when cultivating the culture of cheap talk in bars in our towns and cities.

HYPNOTISED STATE

The best tribute we can give to Marjorie is to fashion a new course for cultural studies in the country. We need to honestly assess the contribution of each generation of players in Kenyan cultural studies truthfully than engage in the hopeless fiats that I see from the likes of “Nameless Mulama”.

Again, let me drop back to something I heard Marjorie say one day at a Kenya Writers Association (WAK) meeting in the 1990s. “In order to properly assess the present, we need to assess the past and project the future”. To Marjorie, the past presents a fertile watershed for search of meanings. This is the fundamental statement she makes in her ever green novel, Coming to Birth. The growth and transformation of her main protagonist, Pauline, is synonymous with the birth and growth of the Kenyan nation.

But it is just not a matter of recognising major critical voices of each generation that is important here. We also need to inspire a conversation between generations. Look, despite Kenya being the capital of publishing in the East African region and a literary hotbed, there is very little to show in terms of published critical works.

I think appreciation of those who came before us will change our literary orientation. At the moment, we have imbibed unproductive fascination with the West. Through our interaction with the west, we have witnessed the consummation of the marriage between western literary theory and practice.

Our hypnotised state is evident in the jingles accompanying the well-executed papers we colour with Western theoreticians. The younger Kenyan critic is fired with the urge to copy, copy and copy. He suffers a chronic inferiority complex and a limited understanding of his society. Marjorie would cry over our fascination with the theoretical positions engineered by others from outside our continent. No wonder we specialise in buying catchwords prepared in western capitals that we are at the same time unable to explain in mother tongue.

I cry for the loss of one of the best thinkers of our time. Let me ask this question on behalf of Marjorie: After parroting about Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartman, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Harold Bloom, Richard Miller, Hillis Miller, I.A. Richards and F.R. Leavis and the so-called new American critics, what is our contribution to literary theory?  Are these names mere spices in the literary gravy we serve?

Let me refer to one of the catch phrases in the vogue, Deconstruction. It is true that Deconstruction as a form of textual analysis basically began as a form of philosophy that attempted to challenge the western metaphysical tradition in general and its theories of meaning in particular, but it is probably best known in the English-speaking world as a literary theory. Its popularity is largely due to the efforts of Derrida-influenced ‘Yale School.’ Is there anything coming from our distinguished departments of literature at the University of Nairobi, Masinde Muliro University, Moi University and Egerton University? I equally stand guilty as charged, but that is why I have been advancing a new paradigm: Critical Reconstructionism.

MERGING CULTURES

Perhaps we are busy earning a living within departments of Literature having obtained a license for display of linguistic virtuosity that steers clear of interpretation and theorisation on Marjorie and others of her gender. In this country, the imaginative harvests and prize winners come in heartening frequency and they spread the gospel of our intellectual resilience, but I do not see corresponding outpouring of our critical readings.

Have we given attention to the emerging generation of literary experimenters? Are we encouraging them to go on experimenting? I say the best tribute to Marjorie is to establish all gaps in our literary explorations and expand our horizon. We should also push our engagements towards interdisciplinary status and connect with comparative studies. This may call for change of our literature curricular.

We have to; once again, ask if the merging of literature and English language at secondary school level is serving our purpose. The debates on the use of indigenous languages in literature are hardly exhausted. As we continue to scratch the tip on the iceberg, we should at the same time aim at influencing policy on culture.

What about our children and young adults, for which Marjorie was so concerned about? You know what I mean if you have read her popular poem entitled ‘A Freedom Song.’ True, while children’s and adolescence literature has been growing, there is no serious output in terms of literary criticism.

In terms of the production of biographies and autobiographies, there is a growing body of works, but again we have very few comparative studies appreciating their contribution to understanding of our identity and ideology.

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye expanded the horizon of the concept of “coming” in subversive terms in her phenomenal novel: Coming to Birth. As I bid her bye, I wish to stubbornly ask: Has our literary criticism come to birth?