The Kenyan popular thriller and history: a reading of Black gold of Chepkube and Three days on the cross

Abstract

Literary texts do not emerge from a vacuum. They are created in specific historical epochs which shape them and which they respond and speak to. To demonstrate that this point is true regardless of whether the literary text falls in the category of canonical, “serious” literature or popular fiction, this study examines how two Kenyan popular fiction novels, Black Gold of Chepkube by Wamugunda Geteria and Three Days on the Cross by Wahome Mutahi, engage with history. These two novels are premised on historical events with Black Gold of Chepkube taking as its context the black market trade in coffee across the Kenya-Uganda border in the 1970s, which led to the emergence of a new culture of corruption in Kenya, while Three Days on the Cross, which although set in an imaginary African country, is a fictional rendition of its author's experience under police custody for sedition-related charges. The objectives of the study are: to examine the elements of popular fiction present in Wamugunda Geteria’s Black Gold of Chepkube and Wahome Mutahi’s Three Days on the Cross; to explore how Wamugunda Geteria’s Black Gold of Chepkube and Wahome Mutahi’s Three Days on the Cross engage with history; and to discuss the significance of the engagement of Wamugunda Geteria’s Black Gold of Chepkube and Wahome Mutahi’s Three Days on the Cross, as popular fiction texts, with history. The study employs New Historicism theory, as espoused by Stephen Greenblatt, which states that a literary work should be considered a product of the time, place, and historical circumstances of its composition rather than as an isolated work of art or text. In terms of method, this is a qualitative research at the heart of which is the content analysis of Wamugunda Geteria’s Black Gold of Chepkube and Wahome Mutahi’s Three Days on the Cross. The study critically analyses the two novels in its exploration of how they engage with history. With its demonstration that both Wamugunda Geteria’s Black Gold of Chepkube and Wahome Mutahi’s Three Days on the Cross transmit knowledge about history and intervene in Kenya’s political debates of the 1990s, the study concludes that the dismissal of popular fiction as “non-serious” on account of a perceived impulse to “escape” from social and political concerns has no basis in fact. This being the case, there is a need to reevaluate attitudes towards popular fiction which blind readers to the fact that these texts contribute to a writing of history from below, from the perspective of the masses.