Dec 31, 2009

The Green Leaves | "The Green Leaves" and Postcolonial Kenya

Grady is a student in folklore and African
studies. In this essay, Grady considers Ogot’s story
in relation to the postcolonial experience in Kenya.

Is colonialism dead? Or is it, as ‘‘The Green Leaves’’ relates, merely knocked unconscious, ready to reassert its destructive power through individual Africans acculturated into its values and ideas, willing to act outside the communal norms to seek individual success? Kenyan writer Grace Ogot illustrates this postcolonial dilemma in ‘‘The Green Leaves,’’ a story that serves as a cautionary tale to the generation of Kenyan leaders gaining in power after the end of the independence struggle.

Grace Ogot was born into the generation that would struggle for and...