Penpoints, gunpoints, and dreams, as literary scholars experience Ngugi's Kenya first-hand

The late renowned author Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o during the launch of his book Kenda Muiyuru by the East Africa Educational Publishers at the Kenya National Theatre. [George Orido, Standard]

A major literary fete opened in Nairobi on Wednesday, just as Kenyans took to the streets to remember their dead, only for police to open fire and kill some more, and maim many more. Official tallies of the dead stood at 15, while another 400 people were injured.

I suspect the pitch from the organisers hailed Nairobi as the world’s only city to boast of a game park, a green city in the sun, blah blah blah. But no one would have anticipated the conference as a performance stage bringing to life the tensions that Ngugi wa Thiong’o, our recently-departed ancestor, envisioned presciently in Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams.

Art, after all, or its performance, is a contested territory, king’ang’anyiro, as we call it, where the artist performs her art within the strictures of a State paranoid of the artist’s power and influence on society.

Put simply, art is a living tissue, produced in such risky circumstances one is perpetually at risk of detention or torture, or having a truncheon aimed at their head, just for saying your piece.

These, after all, are the chaos under which Ngugi produced his writing, producing novels and memoirs on toilet paper, or directing plays in makeshift theatres, before they were dismantled by a State paranoid about artist’s power.

So, the protests provided a fitting welcome for delegates at the African Literature Association’s 50th anniversary whose theme was Ecologies of Transition: Spaces and Mobilities in African Literatures and Cultures.

For those who were smoked out from their hotel rooms, tasting tear gas for the first time in their lives, please note the teargas used this week had a hint of mint. Nairobi cops offer different flavours.

The conference guests shouldn’t leave town without a visit to the Kenya National Theatre where The Trial of Dedan Kimathi is running until Sunday. The play is by Ngugi and Micere Githae Mugo, two of the nation’s leading lights.

The play is returning to theatre after a 50-year hiatus.

A license for its performance had been denied for decades, highlights the confluence of penpoints and gunpoints that Ngugi wrote about. Put simply, the conference couldn’t have come at a better time. Kenya, and Kenyans, are the real deal!