The Trial of Dedan Kimanthi by Micere Githae Mugo, co-authored by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

About Micere Githae Mugo

The Trial of Dedan Kimanthi by Micere Githae Mugo, co-authored by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

The Trial of Dedan Kimathi is a 1976 play written by Kenyan playwrights Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Micere Githae Mugo. The story centres on the trials of Dedan Kimathi, a Kenyan national hero who resisted colonialism in Kenya, and the pressure put on him to disclose his allies to the colonial authorities. (Goodreads) Ngugi and Mugo agreed to co-author a play on Kimathi, describing him as a hero of the Kenyan masses. They argued that there was no single historical work written by a Kenyan telling of the grandeur of the heroic resistance of Kenyan people fighting foreign forces of exploitation and domination — that their historians and even some literary figures were trying to document the same colonial myths about the Kenyan people. (Encyclopedia.com) The play is not merely historical drama but a living act of political resistance — reconstructing Kimathi as a hero rather than the criminal colonial records portrayed him as. It remains one of the most performed plays in East Africa.