I Refuse to Die (The Autobiography of Koigi Wa Wamwere): My Journey for Freedom

FROM THE PUBLISHER

I Refuse to Die is both the story of one gifted man who rose above the horrors of colonization, and an uncensored account of Kenya's blood-stained past. With determination born of suffering, Koigi wa Wamwere documents the brutality of the colonial years. He describes the physical and emotional abuse visited on his parents and others by the plundering British. Tracing the roots of the Mau Mau rebellion and the strict curfews and violence of the colonial government, wa Wamwere follows the evolution and degeneration of Jomo Kenyatta and the rise of Daniel arap Moi. During those years, wa Wamwere began to speak out and fight for human rights. In 1979 he won a seat in the parliament, where he represented the economically depressed Nakuru district for three years. His history is infused with freedom songs of his people and revealing allegories born out of the Kenyan storytelling tradition. As an activist, a journalist, and a member of the Kenyan parliament, wa Wamwere was framed and detained on three separate instances, spending thirteen years in prison, where he was tortured but not broken. His mother and other mothers led a hunger strike to free him and fellow political prisoners. Their efforts brought about a show trial where wa Wamwere was sentenced to four more years in prison and six strokes of the cane. Under such a sentence, others had died from abuse to body and spirit. But, buoyed by a growing chorus of international support, wa Wamwere refused his fate. And lived not only to tell, but to fight on.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

Human rights activist Wa Wamwere relates in harrowing detail the repeated incarcerations, tortures, and terrors inflicted upon him and his family by Kenya￯﾿ﾽs oppressive regimes.

This strange and powerful work mixes memoir, social history, polemic, and manifesto. Its basic structure is autobiographical, but Wa Wamwere frequently interrupts with Kenyan history, ethnography, folk tales, poetry, fables, parables, songs, and laments for lost friends and lost causes. We learn about his birth into an impoverished family. His father was a forest worker who labored long hours for a pittance. His mother struggled to keep her family safe and cohesive; she emerges here as a powerful woman who would not abandon the political causes of her sons, even in the face of prison and torture. Wa Wamwere￯﾿ﾽs childhood was difficult in school and out. He recalls teachers who beat him every day, and he endured the loss of a one-year-old sister who was inadvertently dropped into a pot of boiling porridge. He records his disillusion with Jomo Kenyatta, who transformed quickly from hero to horror, and his revulsion at the policies of David arap Moi, Kenyatta￯﾿ﾽs successor. Wa Wamwere attended Cornell in the early 1970s but returned to Kenya in 1973 and became involved in revolutionary politics. The next 30 years brought him small successes (he was elected to parliament) and unspeakable pain. For opposing Moi￯﾿ﾽs government, he was repeatedly arrested (usually without warrant), beaten, jailed, and otherwise humiliated and intimidated. His most recent release was in 1997. The author treads at times on Western toes: he blasts America for supporting African dictators, vigorously defends "female circumcision," and laudsQadaffi. Interested less in the quality than in the power of his prose, he frequently diminishes the latter by paying too little attention to the former; clich￯﾿ﾽs pervade and sometimes spoil his text.