The African Novel and the Challenges of Underdevelopment: A Postcolonial Reading of Meja Mwangi’s Urban Trilogy

The nexus between literature and politics, and by extension, economics, has been widely acknowledged. The writer and his work are said to share a relationship that is rooted in the vicissitudes of life in the society, and this is represented in different prisms of understanding and allegiance. This paper attempts a post-colonial rereading of Meja Mwangi’s urban trilogy, namely Going Down River Road, Kill Me Quick and The Cockcroach Dance. The paper aggregates models of reading that goes beyond mere exhorbitation of discourse. Post colonial discourse should not only counter the misrepresentations of Africa by colonial discourse, it must show the way and the means of getting out of their present condition. The paper therefore deploys the methodological approach by Rodney, Aimee Ceasaire and Ngugi to demonstrate how literature is inseparable from the political and economic foundations of the society in which it is produced.