They Are Us

KATAMA MKANGI (1944–2004) was a sociologist, activist, and Swahili novelist born in southeast Kenya. In the 1980s, during the authoritarian regime of Daniel arap Moi, he was among several members of the underground Mwakenya Movement to be arrested, imprisoned without trial, and subjected to torture in Nairobi’s infamous Nyayo House. Although he worked as an academic sociologist for most of his life, Mkangi is best known for his novels and has been described as “the founder of the ‘new’ novel in Kenya.” In addition to Walenisi, he wrote the coming-of-age love story Ukiwa and the absurdist allegory Mafuta.

Sentenced to death, Dzombo is thrust into a whirlwind journey of enlightenment on the utopian Theyrus whose residents have ridded themselves of the tyrannical system established by the repressive Flayers. His humanity restored, his resolve to enlighten his people leads him back to earth. In They Are Us, Richard Prins’s brilliant translation brings Katama Mkangi’s Walenisi to English readers.