Unbowed Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, A Short History of Kenya and our BookBrowse Review of Unbowed.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

About This Guide

"Wangari Maathai's memoir is direct, honest, and beautifully written—a gripping account of modern Africa's trials and triumphs, a universal story of courage, persistence, and success against great odds in a noble cause." —Bill Clinton.

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your group's conversation about Wangari Maathai's Unbowed, an autobiography that offers a message of hope and inspiration through one woman's achievements on behalf of women, the environment, and democracy in Kenya.


About This Book

In this deeply affecting and inspiring memoir, Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a divorced mother of three, recounts her extraordinary life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya.

Born in a rural village in 1940, Wangari Maathai departed from the usual path of Kenyan girlhood when she left her village to be educated in boarding schools run by Catholic missionaries. From there she went on to higher education in the United States, earning both bachelor's and master's degrees in biological sciences. Returning to Kenya, she became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in East and Central Africa and headed the department of veterinary medicine at the University of Nairobi. Because of her engagement in a variety of progressive political causes, she increasingly found herself the target of harassment by then Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi's brutal regime.

She was jailed several times, and wounded in attacks by the police.

In Unbowed, she recounts the political and personal beliefs that led her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa helping to restore indigenous forests while mobilizing rural communities, particularly women, by offering them a small compensation to plant trees in their villages. Over the course of many years, Maathai's extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya's government into the real democracy it is today and in which she has served as assistant minister for the environment and continues to serve as a member of Parliament. In 2004 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her "contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace."



Reader's Guide

1. In her first chapter, "Beginnings," Maathai describes the natural environment of her family's village and the effects of colonial settlement, Christianity, and literacy on the native culture of Kenya. How did the coming of white settlers change the native way of life, particularly in terms of families' relations to the land, a traditional economy, and education?
2. What aspects of her family life and her mother's approach to childrearing, as described in "Beginnings," might have nurtured Wangari's strong, forthright, and optimistic character? How powerful was the effect of cultivating the soil on her imagination as a child?
3. Because her education was in English (and later provided her entry to the Kenyan professional elite) it had the potential to separate her from people who spoke the native languages of Kenya, and to be seen as "a white woman in a black skin" [p. 110]. How does she feel about this problem, and how did she address the issue of language in the Green Belt Movement [pp. 60, 72]?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Anchor Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.