NARRATING THE KENYAN NATION IN DIFFERENT COLOURS

Abstract

At a time like now when the Kenyan nation is undergoing social, economic, political, cultural, and other forms of turmoil, the society needs stories that would help it rethink its identity(ies). The society needs narratives of renewal and hope, but which at the same time seek to restore its humanity. This paper explores the place of literature and literary writers in the discourse on the identity question through a close reading of the novel Different Colours by Ng’ang’a Mbugua. The paper argues that Different Colours is a modern allegory on and of Kenya and the Kenyan society. The image(s) evoked and provoked by the “different colours” of the title, the artists’ world in the text and the multiplicity of hues and shades that form the painting at the centre of the narrative recall the attempt to imagine contemporary Kenya. Producing a painting is no different from imagining and constructing a nation out of the different hues of races, tribes, religions, and cultures that is a country like Kenya. This paper, therefore, pursues the argument that Different Colours is a modern tale that creatively plays with the possibilities of imagining and moralising about Kenya as a nation formed out of the diversity of identities that are found within her.