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Self and Nation in Kenya: Charles Mangua's ‘Son of Woman’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Kathleen Greenfield
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Extract

In this 1971 novel by Charles Mangua, and in his sequel 15 years later, Son of Woman in Mombasa (Nairobi, 1986), Dodge Kiunyu is a self-made man, ‘son of woman’. He believes that he was ‘conceived on a quid’ by ‘one of the scores of men who took [his mother] for a bed-ride’ (1971, p. 7). Raised first by his prostitute mother until her death and then by her prostitute friend, Dodge is sent away to the countryside as an 11-year-old orphan, educated by a mission, and eventually graduated from Makerere University College. His adult life has been spent working ‘with Ministry of Labour, Kenya Shell, Ministry of Lands and Settlement and lastly with the Ministry of Home Affairs as an insider of Kamiti prison–blast them cops!’ (1986, p. 2).

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 685 - 698
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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