Human Rights and Displacement in Literature: The Case of M. Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick and K. Kombani’s The Last Villains of Molo

Abstract

This work aims to explore the relationship between literature and human rights with a hypothesis that literature is a vehicle for enhancing human rights through its condemnation of violations, and thus, the focus is on two novels – Meja Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick and Kinyanjui Kombani’s The Last Villains of Molo – in an effort to demonstrate that they are interested in the issues of human rights, particularly, human rights issues in an area of displacement. The basic argument is that displacement uproots people from their habitual homes where they have high chances of fulfilling their human rights and later abandons them wherein they are rootless in a new environment where they are prone to abuse. The discussion shows that circumstances force characters in both novels to move from their rural homes to the lure of the city which promises that in new environment, their rights will be fulfilled, however, they are displaced in the environment as they can hardly meet their basic needs or afford decent standards of living.