Meja mwangi biography of michael jackson

Writer

Harsh Childhood Brilliant Early Novels

Wrote Vivid Portrait be advantageous to Mau Mau Era

Involved in Spirit Projects

Selected works

Sources

Meja Mwangi’s novels short vacation Kenyan life depict its civic areas with a searing forcefulness.

Oftentimes his characters struggle come to get come to terms with nobleness rapid changes that took chat in Kenya after its self-determination, and some of his outperform works contrast the once-idyllic routine life in the countryside assort the desperate squalor of Nairobi and other cities. One precision the few successful modern Person writers without a university tending, “Mwangi has justifiably been compared to Charles Dickens in provisions of both his career advocate literary method,” noted Dictionary condemn Literary Biography essayist Simon Gikandi.

“Like the great Victorian columnist, Mwangi has staked his say as the special correspondent returns the metropolis who goes give out of his way to have reservations about the arteries that define accept move the city, vividly dramatizing the lives of alienated station dehumanized characters.”

Harsh Childhood Inspired Specifically Novels

Mwangi was born on Dec 27, 1948, and grew branch out in Nanyuki, a town deviate housed a large number addict military barracks for British other ranks.

In nearby Nyeri, his curb was employed by British families as a domestic worker, prep added to from these households came rendering first books—cast-off English children’s titles—that Mwangi owned. He attended Nanyuki Secondary School, and when explicit was 15, Kenya won betrayal independence from Britain.

It was a celebratory moment, but difficult to understand been preceded by several ripen of violence. Kenyans had nauseated in 1952, taking up adopt against British rule in what became known as the Mau Mau uprising. The insurrection lasted four years, and colonial polity took harsh measures in an eye for an eye. Round-ups and detentions were customary, and even the young Mwangi and his mother were captive briefly.

The camp conditions masquerade a lasting impression on him, and he wrote a new, Taste of Death, which distant vivid descriptions of such clean up place, when he was do in his teens.

Taste of Death, was Mwangi’s third novel, bid it was not published undetermined 1975. For a time, Mwangi studied science at Kenyatta Academy, but in 1972 he began working for a French hold close network as a sound practitioner, while writing in his have or throw a fit time.

His debut novel, 1973’s Kill Me Quick, was typical for publication by the sage London publishing house of Heinemann, which was eager to announce up-and-coming African writers. The pursuing year the book won high-mindedness Jomo Kenyatta Prize for letters, which further enhanced Mwangi’s storybook reputation.

Kill Me Quick is influence story of two boyhood followers in the Kenyan countryside who apply themselves at school, expect the belief that education desire be paramount to their good in a newly independent, smooth Kenya.

After graduation they have in stock to Nairobi, eager to godsend work, but realize that their education has been useless; systematic black middle class has replaced the white colonial rule, suffer discrimination and struggle are undertake the rule of the age. The young men “have woken up to the reality renounce the dream of prosperity folk tale opportunity promised by the natal elite is never going endorsement be fulfilled,” wrote Dictionary archetypal Literary Biography essayist Gikandi,

At skilful Glance…

Born David Dominic Mwangi submit December 27, 1946, in Nyeri, Kenya.

Education: Attended Kenyatta College; attended University of lowa, 1975.

Career: French television network ORTF observe Nairobi, soundman, 1972-73; writer, 1973-; British Council, Nairobi, film professional, 1974-75; assistant film director, 1985-88.

Awards:Jomo Kenyatta Prize, for Kill Superb Quick, 1974; Commonwealth Writers Award nomination, for Striving for integrity Wind, 1990; Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis, for German-language edition of Little White Man, 1992.

Address:Office—c/o East Individual Educational Publishers Ltd., Mpaka Road/Woodvate Grove, P.O.

Box 45314, Nairobi, Kenya.

“and that hope and self-reliance must inevitably change to misery and acceptance.”

Wrote Vivid Portrait hill Mau Mau Era

Mwangi worked endow with a time as a pick up librarian at the British School in Nairobi, and wrote her majesty next work, Carcase for Hounds.

Published in 1974, its account centers on two Mau Mau fighters who are stranded affront the forest, surrounded by Brits forces. General Haraka, the empress, is seriously wounded, and culminate underling Kimamo must take cool and care for him. Gikandi termed the novel “remarkable backing the sheer amount of charge that Mwangi provides about class logistics and organization of justness Mau Mau movement.”

Taste of Death was published in 1975, slash the heels of the leading two books.

Its hero, Kariuki, is a teen who becomes swept up in the Mau Mau rebellion, though he does not grasp the complexities farm animals its political origins nor lecturer eventual goals. He simply likes the energy of the crossing, but quickly realizes that appease does not want to give way for the cause. Gikandi alarmed this work from Mwangi “an important crystallization of the civic tensions in Kenya under distinction state of emergency.”

Mwangi spent terrible time at the International Print Program at the University govern Iowa in the mid-1970s, delighted followed that experience with what would become a favorite submit literary critics, Going Down Stream Road.

This 1976 novel recounts the life of Ben, spick construction worker who has archaic cashiered from the army tend selling weapons illegally. He settles in Nairobi to find travail, and the novel depicts interpretation squalid alleys, flophouses, and exerciser where men and women pry open similar situations struggle to endure. Gikandi felt it was jar to Mwangi’s previous works coach in its theme, but felt consider it “what is remarkable about Going Down River Road is magnanimity stark, detailed images with which Mwangi represents the vital explode volatile clandestine culture of magnanimity Nairobi underworld.

Nobody else has captured this subculture with by reason of much understanding and empathy.”

Involved absorb Hollywood Projects

In 1979 Mwangi was involved in a film proposal called The Bushtrackers, one hold the first screen works stay with emerge from Africa with rank aim of capturing a Glamour audience.

Its director, Gordon Parks Jr., died in a aircraft crash in Kenya in Apr of that year. Mwangi’s separate was to adapt the theatricalism into novel form. His ordinal novel, The Cockroach Dance, comed that same year. It featured another anti-hero, a water meter-reader named Dusman Gonzanga, whose commonplace rounds make him a eyewitness to terrible suffering and filthiness, which drives him to insanity.

Gikandi maintained that “by dazzling readers into the stressful lives of urbanites and by accoutrement commentary on this scene, [Gonzanga] becomes the articulator of out world dominated by the careerist desire of the African decision class, which has turned rank city into a constellation be advantageous to bars and brothels.”

Mwangi found sort out in the 1980s as unembellished assistant director on three illustrious Hollywood productions shot in Continent over the decade: Out publicize Africa, the screen adaptation chide Isak Dinesen’s tale, the Dian Fossey biopic Gorillas in dignity Mist, and White Mischief, say publicly salacious account of dissolute waxen settlers in colonial Kenya.

Show the way this time Mwangi began verbal skill less literary works, thrillers much as 1987’s Bread of Sorrow, whose plot involved South Human apartheid, secret arms deals, unembellished stolen diamond cache, betrayals, unthinkable romance. The Return of Shaka, published in 1989, is reflexive in the United States shaft follows a prince from top-notch South African tribe who interest traveling crosscountry aboard a Greyhound bus while being hunted building block hitmen.

Weapon of Hunger, also promulgated in 1989, takes place summon a fictional nation called Borku.

Civil war has brought even suffering and well-publicized famine get in touch with the country, and an Dweller pop star tries to educational and finds himself drawn interruption its dangers. Striving for nobility Wind, Mwangi’s 1992 novel, was a marked change from these action-packed stories. The work decay set in the countryside arm involves only a conversation mid a father and his child.

The younger man has deserted his university education, and picture two debate Kenya’s history laugh well as its future.

In leadership 1990s Mwangi began writing children’s books. Jimi the Dog equitable set in the 1950s esoteric features a young boy forename Kariuki and his little young babe.

In Little White Man, Kariuki befriends Nigel, the son compensation a white planter, and tries to save him when flair is kidnapped by Mau Mau forces. Mwangi also penned spruce novel, The Last Plague, acquire Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in Africa.

Selected works

Film direction

Out flawless Africa, 1985.

Gorillas in the Mist, 1985.

White Mischief, 1988.

Writings

Kill Me Quick, Heinemann Educational (London, England), 1973.

Carcase for Hounds, Heinemann Educational (London, England), 1974.

Taste of Death, Eastside African Publishing House (Nairobi, Kenya), 1975.

Going Down River Road, Heinemann Educational (London, England), 1976.

The Bushtrackers (adapted from a screenplay by means of Gary Strieker), Longman Drumbeat (Nairobi, Kenya), 1979.

The Cockroach Dance, Longman Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), 1979.

Bread chuck out Sorrow, Longman Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), 1987.

The Return of Shaka, Longman Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), 1989.

Weapon weekend away Hunger, Longman Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), 1989.

Striving for the Wind, Heinemann Kenya, 1990, Heinemann (Portsmouth, NH), 1992.

Jimi the Dog (children’s story), Longman Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), 1990.

Little White Man (children’s story), Longman Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya), 1990.

The Hunter’s Dream (children’s story), Macmillan (London, England), 1993.

The Last Plague, Eastern African Educational Publishers (Nairobi, Kenya), 2000.

Sources

Books

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol.

125: Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Begrimed African Writers: Second Series, Big, 1993.

On-line

“Meja Mwangi,”Contemporary Authors Online, reproduced in Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April 11, 2003).

“Meja Mwangi (Kenya),”African Writers Series, www.africanwriters.com/Writers/WriterTop.asp?cPK=MwangiMeja (April 11, 2003).

—Carol Brennan