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What is Facing Mount Kenya about?
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Jomo Kenyatta
African statesman and nationalist Jomo Kenyatta was the first prime minister (1963–64) and then the first president (1964–78) of independent Kenya.
Published in 1938, Facing Mount Kenya is an ethnography written by Jomo Kenyatta while he was studying anthropology under Bronisław Malinowski at the London School of Economics.12
The book serves as a detailed study of the traditional life, culture, and social structures of the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Characterized by both deep insight and a tinge of romanticism, the work provides an academic examination of the customs and societal organization of the Kikuyu, who reside in the highlands near Mount Kenya. By documenting these traditions, Kenyatta sought to present a scholarly defense of his people's culture during a period of intense colonial pressure.12