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A Path Not Taken by Anne Thurston: book review



A Path Not Taken: The Story of Joseph Murumbi, Africa’s greatest private cultural collector and Kenya’s second Vice President (2015) is a biography of the man who did not choose the path of a politician in Kenya. Instead, he chose the path of preserving Kenya’s cultural heritage.

The book consists of interviews (most by Anne Thurston), newspaper clippings, and photographs.

The biography does not take the linear path of cradle to grave. Instead, through interviews, and commencing in 1952 when Joseph Anthony Zurtarte Murumbi (1911-1990) returns to Kenya looking for work, and again in 1962, it tells of his rise to high ranks in the government, as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1964-1966) and as Vice-President (1966) to President Jomo Kenyatta after Kenya’s independence in 1963.

Murumbi tells Thurston of his fight for an independent Kenya, mostly from London, where he worked as as part of the Kenyan African Union – and where he began his collection of African books.

The interesting sections are his accounts of race relations (European, Asian, and African), the politics of independence, and his and the country’s political and foreign aid relations with Britain, America, Russia, and China. There are many valuable insights, relevant to today’s political affairs.

So it is about half-way through the book that Murumbi approaches President Kenyatta to resign his post after the assassination of his friend Pio Gama Pinto. He then dedicates his life, along with his wife Sheila, to the preservation of African culture. It began with the collection of stamps, books, textiles, jewellry, and art. He co-founded, with Alan Donovan, the largest Pan-African art gallery on the continent. Despite the devastating fire of 1976, he continued to run his business, African Heritage, trading in arts and crafts. African Heritage is still operating.




Murumbi had hoped that his vast collection and legacy would remain in his Muthaiga home, but they are now housed, along with furniture from his house, in the Nairobi Gallery.



This dense book has a wealth of photographs. This biography is more than a story about a man as a collector. It is a fascinating account of Kenyan independence and international relations, in-depth and with more insight and understanding than any text book. Every word could still apply today in this time of global political turmoil.

But through his own words, during the multitude of interviews, Murumbi reveals his deep connection to culture, and his passion to present Africa to the world in a far different perspective than the violence and corruption of political life. I found it a fascinating read.









MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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