406pp., illus., maps, paperback, Athens, 2017
Winner of the 2019 Paul Hair Prize for best translation into English of primary source materials on Africa.
Introductory note by Willy Mutunga. Foreword by Micro Githae Mūgo and Ngūgī wa Thiong'o.
Transcript from the 1956 trial of Dedan Kimathi, leader of the Mau Mau Rebellion against the British colonial regime in Kenya. Kimathi was hanged in 1957.
Includes contributions from David Anderson, Simon Gikandi, Nicholas Githuku, Lotte Hughes and John Lonsdale.
“With the proceedings and exhibits of Kimathi’s show trial produced in gripping detail, and essays showing why this trial mattered far beyond a Nyeri courtroom in 1956, MacArthur superbly situates Kimathi’s fate amidst African resistance to crumbling empire.” Huw Bennett, author of Fighting the Mau Mau: The British army and counter-insurgency in the Kenya emergency
Julie MacArthur is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Cartography and the Political Imagination.