This book investigates the representations of Atrocity in Kenyan Literature, Film, music and other digitally mediated cultural art forms. With essays from some of the top minds in the field, this book provides refreshing insight into the study of the unspeakable within the litreray and visual imaginary of the postcolonial nation.

List of ContributorsAcknowledgementsForeword Introduction: Conceptualizing Representations of Atrocity in Art PART ONE: Representations of Atrocity in the Contemporary Kenyan Novel Narrating Trauma in Yvonne Owuor’s Dust An Eco-critical Reading of Voice of the People and Different Colours Locating Bodies, Embodying Resistance: A Foucauldian Reading of Wahome Mutahi’s Jail Bugs and Three Days on the Cross Derision, Delirium and Denied Justice in Benjamin Garth Bundeh’s Birds of Kamiti Socio-Economic Atrocities in Meja Mwangi’s Going Down River Road and Kinyanjui Kombani’s The Last Villains of Molo Symbolism of Human Relations in Narratives of Ethnic Violence in Kenya Sycophants in a Cannibal State: Finding Kenya in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow Negotiating the Vicious Cycle of Political Atrocities in Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Wizard of the Crow Gender-Based Atrocity in Kenyan Urban Women's Novel after 2000 Reading the Politics of Violence and Impunity in Pango and Kufa Kuzikana Political Atrocity in Kenyan Swahili Novel after 2000 PART TWO: Narrating Mau Mau Violence and Trauma in the Kenyan Novel Textual Subversion in the Representation of Mau Mau Atrocities in Settler Writing in Kenya Grotesque Images of Colonial and Mau Mau Violence in Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Weep Not Child and A Grain of Wheat Emergency Trauma in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat PART THREE: Representations of Atrocity in Popular Arts Between fait accompli and eruptions of violence: Kenyan identity in Kwani’s twin edition 2008 Confronting National Pain and Suffering through Judy Kibinge’s Feature Film, Something Necessary Screening Violence: the Production and Circulation of Films about the Kenyan Post-election Violence of 2007/2008 Bestial Zoosemic labeling in Kenyan Political Songs: A Conceptual Metaphor Perspective Reading Kalenjin Popular Music as a Germ of Ethnic Violence PART FOUR: Representations of Atrocity in Kenyan Poetry Repression in the Poetry of Jared Angira Poetry and Atrocity: An Analysis of Three Kiswahili Poets Index