A Stylistic Analysis of John Habwe’s Pendo La Karaha

This article conducts a stylistic analysis of John Habwe’s Swahili novel Pendo la Karaha (Distasteful Desire). Grounded on the core stylistic principles of choice, variation and deviation (from the norm), the objectives of the study are to investigate linguistic choices made by the author, assess the aesthetic value of salient deviant choices and discuss their functional significance in the text. The key stylistic elements that are analyzed include diction, schemes and syntactic deviations as well as figures of speech including imagery, allegory, metaphor, irony among others.