Grace Ogot and the Cultural Politics of Misdiagnosis

Kenyan writer Grace Ogot is known for her realist fiction, for promoting traditional myth and folklore, for her children's literature, and for writing in both English and in Dholuo. Her stories first appeared in East African literary journals in the 1960s, making her the first Luo writer and the first Kenyan woman to achieve wide acclaim. Her best-known work is the 1966 novel The Promised Land , a text that centers on issues of migration and identity in East African history. This paper asserts that we can best understand Ogot's wider accomplishments by asserting the centrality of her medical training and background, which shaped her relationship to all manner of social and cultural initiatives. A discussion of The Promised Land and its reception over the past half century is followed by a look at how medical concepts inform her politics and her writing, with the argument that the trope of misdiagnosis functions as a central feature in this groundbreaking Kenyan novel.