ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the representation of land and landscape by Kenyan female authors starting from the early years after independence till the twenty-first century. It also argues that the more publications by Kenyan female authors tend to portray landscapes as dynamic and embodied. Overall, Kenyan understandings of landscapes in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s writing are dynamic, advancing or withdrawing in relation – or reaction – to inflows and outflows of people, finance, technology and power. The chapter argues that landscapes in Grace Ogot ’s The Promised Land represent conflict – at a physical and narrative level. Nyapol’s and Ochola’s Luo forefathers gave up their lives to wrestle territory from Nandi pastoralists. In Nyapol’s view, this history makes migration away from home tantamount to sacrilege. Ogot recycles this motif of physical conflict, underlining the extent to which violence is a key marker of Luo landscapes.
