The Missing Conscript: Untold African Stories from World War 1 with Lutivini Majanja

What does it mean to trace a family line through silence, absence, and war? In this episode of Sera na Sauti, we sit down with writer Lutivini Majanja to explore the untold stories of African conscripts in World War I—through the personal and haunting story of her great-grandfather, Odanga.Drawing from her evocative essay Odanga Is Still Fighting, Lutivini shares with us the forgotten world of the Carrier Corps—over 90,000 men conscripted from western Kenya to support Britain’s war effort. Many never returned. Many were never named.This is not a history we’re taught in school. It lives instead in fragments: in family memory, in children’s rhymes, in funeral rites, and in the words not spoken. We talk about the challenges of reconstructing erased histories—and how storytelling can become a practice of memory and history, making space for the lives history tried to forget.Lutivini takes us beyond the familiar imagery of European trenches to center East African landscapes and legacies. She shares how her great-grandfather Odanga wasn’t selected for conscription but insisted on going, an act that reveals the complex ways Africans responded to colonial recruitment. Meanwhile, her other great-grandfather fled and hid until the war ended—two very different responses to the same call, within her family.📌 Key themes from the conversation:✅ The forgotten African soldiers of WWI and the systematic erasure of their contributions✅ Two great-grandfathers: one who escaped conscription, and one who insisted on going when his younger brother was chosen✅ The politics of archives: Lutivini’s search for Odanga and the barriers to accessing African war histories✅ A creative nonfiction approach that blends oral histories, family interviews, and archival research✅ How funeral recitations, naming practices, and oral traditions preserve what colonial archives overlook✅ How war, silence, and colonial violence echo across generationsThis is a conversation about war and memory, grief and recovery—and what it means to search for someone history tried to forget.📚 Reading Materials:* Odanga is Still Fighting* Kariakor: The Carrier Corps by Goeffrey Hodges Get full access to Sera na Sauti at seranasauti.substack.com/subscribe