Let's start, as we sometimes do, with a bit of Shakespeare.

That's what I tell you, I'll say you'll give you in a bit of Shakespeare.

It's a lot of undo and a ruffe of all of all.

Ah, Basi,

Mungu Tzu, I know how I'm you'll know what I'll do you'll

know what you'll.

Ha!

Ha! He kikahya, I'm men and my men and my tammy. If you don't know that's

Missourg, it's Marry Wives of Windsor, it's likely because you're not one of the millions

of people in the world who speak Swahili? While spoken in many places,

Swahili is most tied to one particular part of the African continent, the one we'll be talking about in this episode.

This episode is about Shakespeare and East Africa. From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore,

the Folger's director. If you aren't from East Africa, you may have never really considered

the outsized role of our favorite English playwright on the region's politics, history, and literary culture.

In this episode, we speak with two people who are profoundly interested in the subject on a deeply personal level.

These two literary scholars both grew up in Kenya, but at different times and under completely different

circumstances. Edward Wilson Lee, the son of white wildlife conservationists, spent his childhood

in Kenya. Today, he teaches Shakespeare at the University of Cambridge in England. Over the

past few years, he has spent extended periods back in Kenya as well as in Tanzania,

Uganda, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, researching his book, Shakespeare in Swahili land.

Edward is joined by one of his great literary heroes, the renowned Kenyan playwright,

novelist, dissident, and social activist Gugi Wathion. Gugi also grew up in Kenya

...