This paper presents an analysis of Valerie Cuthbert’s The Great Siege of Fort Jesus (1970) by interrogating the relationship between its historical sources and its bias and omissions. Written for young adults, the novel engages with histories of the Kenyan coast during the 16th and 17th centuries. Using this text as a lens permits more general reflections on writers’ use of sources and how their choices shape the historical novels that emerge. I examine Cuthbert’s sources to determine which she adopts, what revisions she undertakes and which she neglects entirely. I conclude that the history Cuthbert relies on is notably one-sided, amounting to misrepresentation with potentially detrimental political consequences. Both her sources and the novel that emerges from them, I conclude, implicate and inscribe specific ideological positions tied to a specific arrangement of power.

中文翻译：

---

历史渊源与小说创作：瓦莱丽·卡斯伯特的《耶稣堡大围攻》分析

本文通过询问其历史来源与其偏见和遗漏之间的关系，对瓦莱丽·卡斯伯特 (Valerie Cuthbert) 的《耶稣堡大围攻》(1970) 进行了分析。这部小说是为年轻人写的，讲述了 16 和 17 世纪肯尼亚海岸的历史。使用本文作为镜头，可以对作家对资料来源的使用以及他们的选择如何塑造出现的历史小说进行更广泛的反思。我检查了 Cuthbert 的资料来源，以确定她采用了哪些、她进行了哪些修订以及她完全忽略了哪些。我得出的结论是，Cuthbert 所依赖的历史明显是片面的，相当于具有潜在有害政治后果的虚假陈述。我的结论是，她的资料来源和由此产生的小说，