Project

The Fire at Paa ya Paa

Jordan Burke

In 1968, a major East African poet and anthropologist of religion was expelled from Uganda, his home country. Cast adrift in a period of unrest and totalitarian violence, Okot p’Bitek made his way to a gallery most of us have never heard of: Paa ya Paa. A major nexus of literary and artistic production in postcolonial Africa, Paa ya Paa, located in Nairobi, Kenya, provided a space for performance and free innovation in a milieu increasingly defined by assassinations, government surveillance, and exile. This podcast recovers the modes of creative response to colonial religion and postcolonial authoritarianism that the gallery fomented by weaving together the twists and turns of a nation and a poet.

Additional Reading

Bukenya, Austin. “Paa ya Paa gallery: A plea for saving the flying antelope.” Daily Nation. December 15, 2018. https://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/A-plea-for-saving-the-flying-antelope/1220-4896514-euc04bz/index.html.

Allen, Tim. “The Rage of Okot p’Bitek: colonial perspectives and a failed doctorate.” Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa. July 12, 2019. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/07/12/rage-okot-pbitek-colonial-perspectives/.

Gikandi, Simon. “Introduction: East African Literature in English from 1945 to the Present.” The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945. Edited by Simon Gikandi and Evan Mwangi. 1-22. https://books.google.com/books?id=QaurAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Sicherman, Carol. “Revolutionizing the Literature Curriculum at the University of East Africa: Literature and the Soul of the Nation.” Research in African Literatures 29, no. 3 (1998): n. 8. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3820624.

Evil eye mural for gates at Paa ya Paa. Photo: Jordan Burke

Elimo's mural at Paa ya Paa. Photo: Jordan Burke

Mural at Paa ya Paa. Photo: Jordan Burke

Disintegrating paper at Paa ya Paa. Photo: Jordan Burke

Destroyed boundary wall at Paa ya Paa. Photo: Jordan Burke

Pentecost ruins at Paa ya Paa. Photo: Jordan Burke

Toppled freedom fighter at Paa ya Paa. Photo: Jordan Burke

Project Contributors

Jordan Burke

PhD, English

Jordan Burke holds a doctorate in English from the University of Virginia, where he studied modern and contemporary literature and culture as a Jefferson Fellow. His current book project, "Profession of the Unseen," follows a network of postcolonial scholar poets whose work between fields shapes contemporary approaches to form, culture, and the global departmentalization of literature. He received his B.A. in art history and English from the University of South Carolina and, after managing an art gallery in Washington D.C., received his M.A. in religion from Yale University. His writing is published or forthcoming in PMLA, Studies in Romanticism, and Religion and Literature, and it has appeared in anthologies on subjects ranging from Romanticism to modernism.

Additional Credits

With special thanks to Elimo Njau, Henry Indangasa, Peter Oruka, Juliane Okot Bitek, Agnes Oyela, Gertrude Rubadiri, Kwame Rubadiri, Sekou Rubadiri, Grace Kiragu, Tim Allen, Ruth Finnegan, and Jahan Ramazani.

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