September 19, 2007
Author reveals ‘untold story of Britain's gulag in Kenya'
Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Elkins to speak at Clark Oct. 10
 Worcester, Mass. - The Clark University Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies will host a lecture by author Caroline Elkins on her Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya," at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, in Tilton Hall, Higgins University Center, 950 Main St.
Elkins will discuss how even though thousands of Kenyans fought alongside the British in World War II, just a few years after the defeat of Hitler, the British colonial government detained nearly the entire population of Kenya's largest ethnic minority, the Kikuyusome—1.5 million people. The compelling story of the prisons and work camps where thousands died was the victim of a determined effort by the British to destroy all official records of their attempts to stop the Mau Mau uprising. Elkins spent a decade in London, Nairobi, and the Kenyan countryside interviewing survivors and perpetrators. The result is an unforgettable account of the unraveling of the British colonial empire in Kenya.
Elkins is the Hugo K. Foster Professor of African Studies at Harvard University. She has won many awards including Fulbright, Andrew M. Mellon, and Knox Fellowships, and has been profiled in leading newspapers and magazines, as well as on National Public Radio and BBC World. Elkins and her research were also the subjects of the BBC documentary "Kenya: White Terror." The controversial film attracted nearly 1.5 million viewers when it first aired in November 2002 and won the International Red Cross Award at the Monte Carlo Film Festival.
This event is co-sponsored by the History and Government and International Relations Departments at Clark University. A reception and book signing will follow. For more information, call 508-793-8897.
The mission of the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is to educate undergraduate and graduate students about genocide and the Holocaust; to host a lecture series, free of charge and open to the public, to use scholarship to address current problems stemming from the murderous past; and to participate in public discussion about a host of issues ranging from the significance of state-sponsored denial of the Armenian genocide and well-funded denial of the Holocaust to intervention in and prevention of genocidal situations today.
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