The Great Escape: Memories of Tribal Violence

Though born to a Luo father and holding a Luo name, Becky, a teenager is seen as a foreigner because her mother is a Kikuyu. With her family, they are violently evicted from Kisumu, the city she was born in, the city where her family lived, the city where she went to school. They escape to Muranga, the place her mother was born and joins a school next to her grandmother’s home. In her new school, she is once again discriminated against because of her Luo name.The Great Escape is Becky’s desperate search for identity in a land where a person is defined by the tribe, he or she hails from.

Other titles by Andrew Maina include: Obama’s Bed, A Letter to Kisumu, Lying Under the Mound, I Am Listening, Grace Onyango; The Butterfly that Touched the Clouds, The Ngware Ride and Ihũa wa Riũa na GĩcũkĩHe is the founder of Kendeka Prize for African Literature.