Leonard Kibera
{{Short description|Kenyan novelist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Leonard Kibera
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1942|10|08|df=y}}
| birth_place = Kenya
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1983|07|19|1942|10|08|df=y}}
| death_place = Kenya
| nationality = Kenyan
| occupation = Novelist, poet
| known_for = African poet, Kenyan poet
}}
Leonard Kibera (1942–1983) was a Kenyan novelist and short story writer, famous for his novel Voices in the Dark (1970) and short story collection Potent Ash (1968).{{citation|editor-first=Douglas|editor-last=Killam|editor2-first=Ruth|editor2-last=Rowe|title=The companion to African literatures|place=Oxford|publisher=J. Currey|year=2000|pages=127–8}} He was awarded third prize in the African drama contest by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1967 for his contributions to African literature.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}
Life
Leonard Kibera was born in Kenya on 8 October 1942 in the family of Elizabeth Nduta and James Kibera and three other siblings.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}
After graduating high school at Embu, Kenya, he studied at the University of California and at Stanford University.
Later in his life, from 1976 he taught at the University of Zambia and the Kenyatta University in Kenya until his passing.{{Cite journal |last=Kibera |first=Leonard |date=1971 |title=The Spider's Web |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3334613 |journal=African Arts |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=34–68 |doi=10.2307/3334613 |jstor=3334613 |issn=0001-9933|url-access=subscription }}
Influences
As an undergraduate at the University of Nairobi, Kibera was mentored by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. He was influenced by Ngũgĩ's sense of relationship, and concerns regarding the modern compared to cultural traditions of the past. A major difference between the works of the two is the fact that the protagonists of Kibera are often rebellious or misfits.{{Cite book |last=Roscoe |first=Adrian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwg4AAAAIAAJ&dq=Leonard+Kibera&pg=PA191 |title=Uhuru's Fire: African Literature East to South |date=30 June 1977 |publisher=CUP Archive |isbn=978-0-521-21295-3 |language=en}}
Works
- (with Samuel Kahiga) Potent Ash. East African Publishing House, 1968.
- Voices in the Dark. Modern African Library, 1970.
References
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Category:20th-century short story writers