REVIEW ESSAY Using Language to Stereotype Kenya's National Character WahomeMutahi How to be a Kenyan Nairobi, Kenya, East African Educational Publishers Limited/Kenway 1996

Abstract

Best known for his popular humour column, "Whispers", which appears in a local Kenyan weekly, Wahome Mutahi has distinguished himself as a prolific prose writer- with a number of novels to his credit. To date, How to be Kenyan is probably his first critical work. On closer scrutiny, the work under review, whichis reminiscent of Chinua Achebe's acclaimed political treatise, The Trouble with Nigeria (1983), seems more of the writer's personal and subjective quarrel with his sociopolitical environment.