Table Of ContentOrigin East Africa
AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES
Editorial Adviser Chinua Achebe
•
This series has been planned to make available the works of
Africa's most outstanding writers at prices accessible to schools
and colleges as well as to the general reader. Orange covers
denote fiction (F), blue covers, non-fiction (NF), green covers
poetry (P) and drama (o).
I Things Fall Apart CHINUA ACHEBE. F
.t Burning Grau CYPRIAN EKWENSI F
; No Longer at Ease CHINUA ACHEBE F
4 Zambia Shall be Free KENNETH KAUNDA NF
5 People of the City CYPRIAN EKWENSI F
6 Mine Bl!)' PETER ABRAHAMS F
7 Weep not, child JAMES NGUGI F
8 A Book of African Verse edited by JOHN REED
and CLIVE WAKE p
9 Modern African Prose edited by RICHARD
RIVE F
1 o Eq11iano' s Travels edited by PA UL
EDWARDS NF
1 I One Man, One Matchet T. M. ALUKO F
u The African WILLIAM CONTON F
1; Mission to Kala MONGO BETI F
14 Quartet edited by RICHARD RIVE F
1 5 Origin East Africa edited by DAVID COOK F
Origin East Africa
A MAKERERE ANTHOLOGY
devised and edited by
DAVID COOK
HEINEMANN EDUCATIONAL BOOKS LTD
LONDON AND IBADAN
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LondoMne lbournTeo rontSoin gaporHeo ngK ong
AucklanIdb adan
©Heinemann Educational Books Ltd 196s
Introduction ©David Cook 196s
First published 196s
Published by Heinemann Educational Books Ltd
15-16 Queen Street, Mayfair, London W.1
Printed in England by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, London, Fakenham and Reading
Contents
VIOLET KOKUNDA
Kefa Kazana
JOSEPH WAIGURU
The Round Mud H11t
4
The Beach 6
The Untilled Field 7
M. M. HAJI
When the Walsl came Tumbling Down I I
Nothing Extraordinary 15
JOHN NAGENDA
Gahini Lake 22
When there is a hush across the sky 23
And This, at Last 23
ANTHONY M. HOKORORO
A Day Off
JOSEPH GATUIRIA
Kariuki
The Herd
CUTHBERT KHUNGA
;8
Too Strange not to be True
vi CONTENTS
TOM CHACHA
Road to Mara 45
BEN MKAPA
Facing a Volcano
p
JAMES NGUGI
The Return
The Village Priest
Gone with the Drought
The Fig Tree
DAVID RUBADIRI
An African Thunder storm 77
Stanley Meets M11tesa 78
A Negro Labourer in Liverpool So
G. K. GICOGO
The Sword of Njeru Sz
VALENTINE EYAKUZE
Kamara, the Butcher King
MICHAEL KAGGWA
To
• . .
JONATHAN KARIARA
90
'Unto Us a Child is Born'
The Initiation 94
Age and Experience 99
The Drean1 of Africa IOO
JAMES MCCARTHY
The Talisman IOI
CONTENTS vii
M. KARIENYE
Where the Wind Blows 106
TILAK BANERJEE
Poem II Z.
An Orissan Love Story 113
SOLOMON KAGWE
To a Fann in the White Highlands I 19
N� G. NGULUKULU
A Prescription 123
JOE MUTIGA
To the Ceremonial Mugumo (Fig-tree) I 3 Z.
The Teachers and the Priest
133
ELVANIA NAMUKWAYA ZIRIMU
The Hen and the Groundnuts 137
Keeping Up with the Mukasas 140
TUNDE AIYEGBUSI
Ladipo's Last Stand 15 z.
PETER NAZARETH
Brave New Cosmos 167
JOHN BING
The Wall 179
Titles of poem.r are in italics
Joe Mutiga's poem, To the Ceremonial Mugumo, first
:appeared in Transition J, and we are grateful to the
editor for permission to reproduce this.
Introduction
When I first started looking around to see what Makerere
students had written in the past, and what they are capable of
writing now, I had no thoughts of making an anthology. I
wanted to read whatever there was to be read as a process of
private discovery. And further to this, I was trying to resolve
certain questions that were running through my mind.
I had become convinced that many students who seek to
study English at Makerere (perhaps the same thing is true of all
African university colleges) do so because they themselves want
to write. My own experience as student and lecturer in British
universities had made me realize that the traditional pattern of
advanced English studies tends more to discourage young
authors than to draw them out. The practice of literary criticism
should not only sharpen all one's sensibilities, but should also
offer a positive challenge to everyone with creative urges. In
practice, in raising a student's standards and his awareness, the
study of literature all too often filsl him with disgust at his own
fumblings with words, and therefore inhibits him from thinking
of himself as a potential author. I wanted to find out how an
English course could best link criticism and creativity.
Naturally the first thing to do was to look at student writing,
Penpoint,
past and present. The chief sources at Makerere were
the English Department magazine, started in 195 8, and original
course work undertaken as part of the study of style. I was
surprised and delighted with what I found. Soon I thought that
some of the forgotten material was worth resurrecting; and some
of the current work worth carpentering. I discussed the whole
