portrait of Gakaara Wanjau

Gakaara Wanjau (1921-2001) was an organic intellectual who started writing in the mid 1940’s after returning from the Second World War and founding the African Book Writers Limited with friends and ex-servicemen. He published the first ever fiction book written in Kikuyu Uhoro wa Ugurani (Marriage Arrangements) under African Book Writers Limited publishing house. He however soon abandoned fictional works in favour of more political works after witnessing the conditions Kenyans were subjected to in the Rift Valley during his time as a clerk for a British company in Nakuru. Gakaara released his first political pamphlet ‘Roho ya Kiume na Bidii kwa Mwafrika’ in November 1948 denouncing this situation which, shortly after, he translated and released in Kikuyu.

This pamphlet was well received, prompting Gakaara to move to Nairobi where he established his own publishing house. In Nairobi, which was the centre of militant politics at the time, he became a political activist and writer involved in the vernacular press and started a Gikuyu nationalist magazine titled Waigua Atia. Besides putting out anti-colonial articles, Gakaara was very active in generating, publishing, and distribution of popular anti-colonial songs alongside publishing more works of fiction in Kikuyu shortly after. This involvement in the anti-colonial struggle eventually led to Gakaara’s arrest in 1952 during the state of emergency. He spent the next 6 years in Kajiado, Manda Island and Hola detention camps among others before being released in 1959 recording his experiences in a hidden diary he kept under a false bottom in his box.

Cover of Gakaara’s prison diary Mwandiki wa MauMau Ithamirioni

After his release, Gakaara set up the Gakaara Press in his hometown of Karatina. There, he shifted focus in his writings to address the new generation of Kikuyus who he felt were at risk of losing touch with their traditional culture, norms and sense of morality. He mostly did this through the Gikuyu na Mumbi Magazine which featured the adventures of Kimani wa Nduuta as Kimani moved between the city, his village and other areas of Gikuyu land addressing the different problems Kikuyus faced in various contexts. Eventually, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a Gikuyu academic sought out Gakaara to have him read some of his manuscripts. In the course of their encounters, Ngugi learnt about Gakaara’s prison diary and encouraged him to get it published by Heinemann. The resulting book Mwandiki wa MauMau Ithamirioni was released in Kikuyu in 1983 and English in 1988 and won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 1984.