An Unsettled Hearth

This is a study of literature that focuses specifically on female writers. It is based on the premise that Kenyan female writers, though prolific, have for a long time been neglected by literary critics, and even when focused upon, are lumped together with other so-called Third world female writers. Thus, the idiosyncrasies in their particular works are very often overlooked. The study seeks to correct this by undertaking an in-depth study of each of the novels explored, while at the same time using each of them to study the Kenyan society with particular attention to the situation of the woman as depicted in the texts. The novel, which in this study is the primary source, is examined as a cultural tool. Given the large number of novels that have been written by Kenyan women writers, the study uses a case-oriented methodology to select a few novels that are used as representative samples for Kenyan writing by women. The texts selected cover a long time period; published from the mid-sixties, just after Kenya s independence, to the outset of the present millennium. The study is guided by theories that are drawn from postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and gender studies.