The village of Kalole is faced with a deadly plague; Shaka Risha. Anyone who contracts it, most likely ends up dead. The whole village is worried; there is no knowing who will catch the deadly ailment next. The village oracle announces that the cure can only be found in the forest, where spirits live. The bravest warriors, led by chief’s son, are dispatched to the forest to get the antidote, but they fail to return. Another group is sent to the forest and they, too, fail to return. The very thought of venturing into the forest petrifies everyone in the village, yet the plague is still claiming its deadly toll. When no one else is willing to go for the cure, little Chadi volunteers to go to the dreaded forest. Will she make it where even the brave warriors failed? You can only get the answer by reading Chadi’s Trip, a children’s book written by Sarah Haluwa and published by Storymoja.
This book won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in the children’s category. The award is organised by the Kenya Publishers Association. Find out the unique qualities that set Chadi apart from other children and which make her suitable for the dangerous mission in the forest, where she will come up against unpredictable spirits. Chadi’s Trip employs magical realism as a literary technique to fire up the imagination of young readers. The fact that it is a young girl engaging the spirits to a point of outmaneuvering them, makes it all the more attractive to the intended audience. Children love heroism. It should be noted that the story is based in Kenya’s coastal region, where young girls are faced with heavy odds. These range from debilitating poverty, teen pregnancies not forgetting the less talked about teenage prostitution that feeds the underground sex tourism market. It is therefore safe to argue that these girls lack role models. Haluwa’s book serves as a welcome inspiration to such girls, seeing as lead character is a young girl, a positive role model, beats odds and is eventually celebrated by a whole village. Writing for children is no walk in the park, thus the author, known to pen adult stuff online, should be commended for successfully making that all-important transition.
Maisha Yetu feels that this book deserves the accolade it got
Marx Kahende (Left), whose book The Wayward Vagabond won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, in the English Adult category, pictured with his publisher Kiarie Kamau, the MD of EAEP
Marx Kahende, a retired diplomat and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s son, Nducu, are among the winners of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.
Kahende’s book, The Wayward Vagabond, published by East African Educational Publishers (EAEP), won in the adult English category, while Nducu wa Ngugi’s book Benji’s Big Win (EAEP), won in the youth English category. Former Nairobian columnist, Sarah Haluwa’s book, Chadi’s Trip (Storymoja) won in the children’s English category.
The awards ceremony, organised by the Kenya Publishers Association, was held on Saturday evening at the Pride Inn Hotel, in Westlands, at the tail-end of the Nairobi International Book Fair.
Samuel Wachira, a Catholic priest based in Meru won the Wahome Mutahi Literary Prize with his book, Hustlers’ Chains, published by One Planet Publishers.
Other winners included Kiswahili scholar Prof Kithaka wa Mberia, whose book Kwenzi Gizani (Marimba Publications) won the Kiswahili Adult Category. In the Kiswahili youth category, the winner was Mbona Hivi? Written by Shullam Nzioka and published by Oxford University Press.
The winner in the Kiswahili children’s category was Fumbo la Watamu by Ali Attas, published by One Planet.
During the event, Prof Laban Ayiro, the Daystar Universtity Vice-Chancellor, who was the chief guest, challenged Kenyans to embrace the culture of reading if they hoped to become good leaders. He emphasised that reading is a prerequisite to good leadership. He also decried the poor reading habits exhibited by the younger generation and majority of leaders across all sectors.
Kiarie Kamau, the chairman of Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) spoke about the supremacy Kenyan publishing. “We are increasingly becoming a force to reckon with in the area of Publishing in Africa and beyond,” said Kamu, who is also the managing director of EAEP. “We sit on the Executive Committees of the International Publishers Association as well as the African Publishers Network. We publish high quality and wide range of general reading materials, most of which serve a global audience. We are already visible on the digital publishing and online selling space … the two literary awards demonstrate that indeed Publishing in Kenya has come of age.”
When Ngugi wa Thiong’o left his Kamirithu village, in Limuru, to join Alliance High School, the State of Emergency had already been declared, by colonial authorities in Kenya. This mainly affected members of the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru communities, that formed the bulk of the Mau Mau rebellion.
Members of these three communities could not move from one district to another without the passbook. Young Ngugi did not have this document, when he went to board the train from Limuru to Kikuyu. It took the intervention of a railways official, who hid him in a luggage compartment, for the train ride to Kikuyu, otherwise, he would have missed the trip altogether.
When he closed school for the April holidays, Ngugi went home to find that his village deserted. The whole village had been moved to the Kamirithu Concentration Camp. He was in time to join constructing the mud house where they had to live for the rest of the emergency period.
These anecdotes are contained in Ngugi’s memoir Dreams in a Time of War, published in 2010. In the book, he recounts an incident where his half-brother was shot dead by colonial officials.
“A few days later, we learned that some people had been killed, one of the casualties being Gitogo, my half-brother,” writes Ngugi about a military operation that took place in Limuru town, during the Emergency period.
“Gitogo worked in a butchery in Limuru. He had started running, following the example of others. Being deaf, he did not hear the white officer shout simama! They shot him in the back.”
In the other incident, Ngugi’s elder brother, Wallace Mwangi, who was in the supply wing of the Mau Mau insurgency, and his uncle, had just bought bullets, from a source, who, unknown to them, was a colonial informer. It was a set-up. Immediately, colonial forces arrived at the scene and arrested the two.
Somehow, Wallace managed to drop his share of bullets in his mother’s shamba nearby. While being arrested, Wallace told his mother, who was in the garden ‘thikirira mbembe icio wega’. On the surface, Wallace told his mother – Mukoma’s grandmother – to cover the roots of her maize with soil and mulch.
However, the truth of the matter is that Mukoma’s uncle told his mother to cover the bullets – mbembe was the Mau Mau code for bullets – with soil that thy are not discovered by the colonial authorities.
Shortly thereafter, Wallace, jumped from the moving police vehicle and ran, under a hail of bullets, to become a Mau Mau fighter in the forest. Wallace’s wife would later be arrested and jailed at the Kamiti Prison.
After he cleared his studies at Alliance, two white police officers arrested Ngugi on trumped up charges of failing to pay taxes and was remanded at the Kiambu Police Station for three weeks.
Kenyans are reading. Introducing; top ten books of the month, as sold by Prestige Bookshop.
1.Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka
In an imaginary Nigeria, a cunning entrepreneur is selling body parts stolen from Dr. Menka’s hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Dr. Menka shares the grisly news with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer, and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne. The life of every party, Duyole is about to assume a prestigious post at the United Nations in New York, but it now seems that someone is determined that he not make it there. And neither Dr. Menka nor Duyole knows why, or how close the enemy is, or how powerful.
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a literary hoot, a crafty whodunit, and a scathing indictment of political and social corruption. It is a stirring call to arms against the abuse of power from one of our fiercest political activists, who also happens to be a global literary giant.
2. Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio has spent half a century studying global economies and markets, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order examines history’s most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those we’ve experienced in our lifetimes – and to offer practical advice on how to navigate them well.
In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings listeners along for his study of the major empires – including the Dutch, the British, and the American – putting into perspective the “Big Cycle” that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead.
3. The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber
The first Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize winner, a story of a girl’s fantastical sea voyage to rescue her father The House of Rust is an enchanting novel about a Hadrami girl in Mombasa. When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too).
On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters. After she survives a final confrontation with Baba wa Papa, the father of all sharks, she rescues her own father, and hopes that life will return to normal. But at home, things only grow stranger. Caught between her grandmother’s wish to safeguard her happiness with marriage and her own desire for adventure, Aisha is pushed toward a match with a sweet local boy that she doesn’t want. Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s debut is a magical realist coming-of-age tale told through the lens of the Swahili and diasporic Hadrami culture in Mombasa, Kenya.
4 President’s Pressman by Lee Njiru
After President Daniel Moi’s retirement in 2002, many were not surprised that Lee Njiru, the long serving Head of Presidential Press Service, as retained as his Press Secretary.
They had walked together through the highs and lows of his presidency. Earlier, Lee was among the few pressman Moi inherited from Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s regime. He was loyal, passionate, and deliver on this challenging assignment.
The book, therefore, gives a rare glimpse of happenings in the corridors of power and illustrates efforts made to advance project Kenya.
5. By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah
By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature
On a late November afternoon Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a far away island in the Indian Ocean. With him he has a small bag in which lies his most precious possession – a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise; silence his only protection.
Meanwhile Latif Mahmud, someone intimately connected with Saleh’s past, lives quietly alone in his London flat. When Saleh and Latif meet in an English seaside town, a story is unraveled. It is a story of love and betrayal, seduction and possession, and of a people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom of their times.
6. Finding Me by Viola Davis
Finding Me is the deeply personal, brutally honest account of Viola’s inspiring life, from her coming of age in Rhode Island to her present-day career.
In this book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.
This is her story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path she took to finding her purpose and her strength, but also to finding her voice in a world that didn’t always see her.
Finding Me is a deep reflection on the past and a promise for the future.
7. The Path to Kaliech: The Outsize Story of William Odongo Omamo
The path to Kaliech are the memoirs of Dr. William Odongo Omamo, a member of the first generation of Kenyan African technocrats. In it, he describes his journey from the backwoods village of Kapiyo in 1928, to the heady positions of Cabinet Minister and senior government official in many different capacities beginning in the 1960s.
It will be of special interest to readers keen on Kenya’s transitions from a pre-industrial, pre-independence colony to an independent nation with a growing economy, but battling to reconcile its diverse political persuasions into a unified nation.
8. Mount Pleasant by Patrice Nganang
A majestic tale of colonialism and transformation, Patrice Nganang’s Mount Pleasant tells the astonishing story of the birth of modern Cameroon, a place subject to the whims of the French and the Germans, yet engaged in a cultural revolution.
In 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, a ruler cast into exile by French colonialists. Merely nine years old, she is on the verge of becoming the sultan’s 681st wife.
Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to learn about the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for years, ready to tell her story. But her serpentine tale, entangled by flawed memory and bursts of the imagination, reinvents history anew. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang’s Mount Pleasant is a lyrical resurrection of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy to the people swept up in the forces of colonization.
9. The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mahmood Mattan, a young Somali sailor, is accused of a crime he did not commit: the brutal killing of Violet Volacki, a shopkeeper from Tiger Bay. At first, Mahmood believes he can ignore the fingers pointing his way; he may be a gambler and a petty thief, but he is no murderer. He is a father of three, secure in his innocence and his belief in British justice.
But as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles. Now, Mahmood must stage a terrifying fight for his life, with all the chips stacked against him: a shoddy investigation, an inhumane legal system, and, most evidently, pervasive and deep-rooted racism at every step.
Under the shadow of the hangman’s noose, Mahmood begins to realize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. A haunting tale of miscarried justice, this book offers a chilling look at the dark corners of our humanity.
10. A Mind to Silence and Other Stories: Ako Caine Prize Anthology 2021-22
A woman who carries her fate and that of her community in her hair is beguiled by the deceptive designs of Europeans out to colonise her most prized possession. A man finds happiness in the reincarnation of a lost love. A young woman risks her life for freedom through the cultural practice of a human loan scheme.
Tales of sacrifice, love, freedom, self-discovery and loss fill the pages of this larger-than-life tapestry of stories from across Africa and its diaspora. Forged in a diversity of tempers and forms, these stories range from the epistolary to the experimental, from mysteries, noirs and political thrillers to speculative fiction and futurism, and much more. In prose that moves from visual and lyrical to gritty and visceral, these writers explore fate, memory, the fragility of love and the duplicitous nature of human interactions.
Longhorn Publishers has expanded its operations to the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Longhorn Publishers has been serving the needs of students and educators in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda for over 50 years, and we’re thrilled to be offering our quality products and services to learners in DRC,” said the company in a statement on their social media pages.
“Longhorn Publishers is committed to providing affordable, high-quality educational resources that support student success. We offer a wide range of textbooks, workbooks, teacher’s manuals, and other instructional materials aligned with the latest curricula,” added the statement. “We look forward to working with students, educators, and parents in DRC to ensure that every learner has access to the resources they need to succeed.”
The Democratic Republic of Congo recently joined the East African Community, a move that is expected to expand business opportunities in the region.
When Jaramogi Oginga Odinga sent his son Raila Odinga to communist East Germany, it was on the firm understanding that he would eventually study Medicine, despite the fact that the son was inclined to the arts.
This was in 1962 and Raila was only 17. He had just left Maranda School. In Germany, he was enrolled at the Herder-Institut in Leipzig, which had been a faculty of the prestigious Leipzig University.
“Students would arrive from many different parts of the world, having gone through widely varying education systems, so there was a need for them to be harmonised into the German system and to pass a university entrance exam before they could be admitted to any German institution of higher learning,” writes Raila in his book the Flame of Freedom. “The Herder-Institut was thus a combination of high school and language school.”
“I was just coming out of primary school, so I had to go through the Herder-Institut’s high school programme, taking three and a half years, along with fellow students from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and many other non-German speaking places,” he adds.
Among his colleagues at the Institute was Moses Keino who would later become Speaker of the National Assembly. Keino had however finished his ‘O’ Level studies back in Kenya, so he only spent a year at the herder-Institut before joining university.
Keino struck friendship with Etta Kirui, a Kenyan girl who had come to Leipzig to further the Nursing course she had acquired in the UK. The friendship blossomed into romance and soon, they were married, with Raila acting as the Emcee.
Their studies included a mandatory three-month basic German language course. “At the end of the three months, I came second to Ruhti in the German language exam,” writes Raila. “Coming from German-speaking Switzerland, he had an advantage over me.”
Back to the ‘Medicine course’.
The path to medical school involved studying Maths, biology, physics and chemistry. During his second year of study, the students had to do some practicals, at a local hospital, which involved the study of human anatomy. This is where a ‘problem’ arose.
“To my horror, the students were practicing on cadavers, cutting them up and examining various pieces of the dead bodies. I looked at it and just felt sick,” writes Raila. “I knew immediately that I was not cut out for medicine.”
Thoroughly traumatised, Raila threatened that he would go back to Kenya, if the institute’s administration did not allow him to change his course of study to Mechanical Engineering. “Changing courses initially put me at a disadvantage,” he writes. “The engineering students had completed courses in subjects I had not been studying… I had to work extra hours to catch up.”
Raila says that at the end of the three-year course, he passed ‘in all the subjects with high marks’ and was admitted to the Magdeburg College of Advanced Technology, which eventually became the Magdeburg Otto-von-Guericke University. “I chose Magdeburg because it specialised in heavy engineering,” adds Raila.
According to the book, Raila was at Magdeburg between 1965 and 1969.
At Magdeburg, Raila was the only African student; the only other African (a Sudanese) chose to identify himself with Arabs. He remembers a certain Norbert Shonborn who was jolly and full of jokes. He was the class clown. “He unfortunately failed his exams and was expelled,” says Raila.
His roommate and best friend in campus was Roland Obst, a German. “We would meet up again, many years later as middle-aged men, at a 2007 college re-union, we attended with our wives,” he writes.
It is at Magdeburg, Baba had his first taste of romance with a girlfriend named Huldegund Ruge, who was studying Chemical Engineering. The girl was fascinated by Africa and since Baba was the only African in a group of 300 students. It is easy to see why she was attracted to Raila.
That romance lasted only six months and Baba hooked up with another German, a school teacher named Margita. “…she used to come see me in Magdeburg, while I also visited her in Arendsee… I stayed with her several times and would take my books to study while she was working… It was a very happy and pleasant time,” writes Baba.
During his time at Magdeburg, Raila was the secretary general of Federation of Kenyan Students in Europe (KFSE). This involved a lot of travel in European countries attending student gatherings. At some point he was scheduled to travel to Moscow. Baba had written a telegram to his brother Oburu, who studying in Russia, so he could pay for their visa and clear them at the airport.
The telegram did not get to Oburu on time, leading to a lots of frustrations by uncooperative airport officials. Fed-up with the frustrations, Baba and his friend decided to hop into a taxi and get to their destination without visas. Airport officials stopped the taxi and ordered the two out. By the time Oburu arrived to sort them out, Baba had already been deported back to Berlin!
Did you know that when the famous American Jazz artiste Neil Armstrong came for a concert in Magdeburg, Baba was hired as an interpreter!
He explains that the courses at Magdeburg were extremely rigorous and that the dropout rate was high. “Of the original 40 in my group, only 17 of us eventually graduated,” explains Baba.
Baba graduated with Upper Second Honours (Gut) in Production Technology, which qualified him to register for a PhD, which he did, but failed to take up the offer.
The Flame of Freedom is published by Mountain Top Publishers.
It was relief for Kenyan publishers after they held their first book fair in two years in Nakuru City last week.
The publishers are just recovering from the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw them lose a whole year’s sales when learning institutions were closed in 2020.
Kiarie Kamau (third from left), the chairman of Kenya Publishers Association conducts Jared Obiero (in blue suit), the Rift Valley Director of Education, around the stands at the Nakuru Regional Book Fair. PICTURE| KLB
Due to restrictions pertaining to Covid protocols, they could not hold a physical book fair. They therefore tried something new, a virtual book fair, which however did not realise any sales. The disappointing outcome made them to cancel plans for holding fairs in 2021.
In total, Kenyan publishers missed out on four book fairs. Each year, the Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) holds two book fairs; a regional one in the counties and an international one at the Sarit Centre in Nairobi.
They were thus raring to go when it became clear that the Nakuru regional book fair would finally become a reality. Kiarie Kamau, the chairperson of KPA expressed optimism that the worst is now behind and urged publishers to diversify their product portfolio to avoid over-reliance on textbooks. “Though schools were closed due to Covid restrictions, people were still reading behind closed doors. We need to fully service this general market while at the same time publishing for the school market,” said Mr Kamau who is also the managing director of East African Educational Publishers (EAEP).
He noted that their decision to hold the regional book fair in Nakuru was informed by the fact that exactly a year ago the town acquired city status. “We wanted to celebrate with the people of Nakuru,” explained Mr. Kamau. “We were excited to see the enthusiastic response from teachers, parents, students and booksellers who thronged our stands during the four days we were at the Maasai Market, along Kenyatta Avenue. Publishers made good sales.”
He added that booksellers were particularly excited to see the fair come to their city. “Booksellers were hard hit by the Covid pandemic; some had even closed shop. To them, this was a clear indication that things are back to normal,” added Mr Kamau.
On her part, Mary Maina, the chairperson of the Nairobi International Book Fair, regional book fairs are the best avenues of taking books to the people, in the true spirit of devolution. “In our case we are distributing knowledge, thereby giving Kenyans throughout the country a chance to sample what publishers have to offer,” said Ms Maina, who is also the managing director of Moran Publishers.
She added that visitors to the Fair got a chance to see all the books that have been approved to be used in the Competency Based Curriculum, which is currently in Grade Six as well as the remaining classes of the 8-4-4 System. “Also on offer were revision books for school children, as well and books for general reading like readers and novels for adults. We got very encouraging reception from booksellers who were keen to stock up,” added Ms Maina.
Kithusi Mulonzya, the CEO of One Planet Publishers, noted that the Nakuru Regional Book Fair was a dry run for the Nairobi International Book Fair that will be held in September. “This year’s event will be bigger and better,” he said.
John Mburu, the general manager of Patmat Bookshop, in Nakuru, thanked publishers for marketing and promoting booksellers in the region. “The coming of the book fair in Nakuru has really boosted our sales,” he said.
The highlight of the Fair was a visit to the Love for All Children’s Home in Shabab area, where publishers donated foodstuffs and books worth sh200,000.
History has a funny way of repeating itself, especially if we do not learn from it.
In 1980, Frank Sundstrom, an American marine landed at the Kenyan coast, where he met Monicah Njeri. Njeri was what you would call a sex worker, yaani alikuwa anatafutia watoto.
One thing led to another; the two had sex, as would have been expected in such a transaction. Much later, while having drinks, Sundstrom, who claimed to have been unhappy with the ‘services’ offered, beat up Njeri, killing her in the process.
He smashed a bottle on Njeri’s head and used the broken bottle to stab her to death. He later made away with Njeri’s money.
32 years later, Agnes Wanjiru, like Njeri, met a British soldier in Nanyuki. The same thing happened and the soldier, who is yet to be identified, murdered Wanjiru and threw her body in a septic tank. Like Njeri, Wanjiru was also stabbed to death.
While Sundstrom was arrested and subjected to ‘trial’, the British soldier literally got away with murder, until about two weeks ago, when a fellow soldier decided to go public with what he knew. Britain’s Ministry of Defence thought they had successfully covered up the murder, until now.
Following an inquest in 2019, judge Njeri Thuku concluded that Wanjiru had been murdered by one or two British soldiers. The whistleblowing soldier told UK’s Sunday Times that the killer had confessed to him and he reported it but the army failed to investigate.
As for Njeri, the murder trial was presided over by a 74-year-old British expatriate judge, who released Sundstrom on a 70 dollar, two-year ‘good behaviour’ bond.
This is what the Washington Post wrote about the case then: “The verdict has brought an outcry for judicial reform from Kenyans, who point out that Sundstrom was tried by a white British judge. The white prosecutor, also British, “instead assumed the role of the defense counsel,” the daily East African Standard of Nairobi charged.”
They say why hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge.
Enter Peter Kimani. In 2002, 22 years after Njeri’s murder, Kimani, then a journalist with the East African Standard, wrote his first novel, Before the Rooster Crows.
In the book, Mumbi, whose father had turned her into a wife, runs away from her village in Gichagi, to the city (Gichuka), in search of better life. To survive in the city, Mumbi turns into a flesh peddler.
Much later, she is joined by Muriuki, her village sweetheart.
Mumbi is willing to leave her old profession so the two can settle down as man and wife, but then a news item in the papers catches her attention. A ship full of American marines docks at the coast (Pwani). Mumbi convinces Muriuki to accompany her to the coast, for ‘one final job’, before finally hanging her, er, petticoat.
At the coast, Mumbi alijishindia a soldier named Desertstorm. After sex Desertstorm claims that he got a raw deal and demands his money back. A fight ensues and the marine stabs poor Mumbi with a broken bottle, a number of times, until she dies. He steals Mumbi’s money after killing her.
Muriuki happens to witness the entire episode through a keyhole, from an adjoining door, too cowardly to intervene.
Desertstorm is hauled before a British judge, who despite the overwhelming testimony against the suspect, sets him free ‘on condition that he signs a bond in the sum sh500 to be of good behaviour for a period of two years’.
Remember, Mumbi’s unlike Njeri and Wanjiru’s case, is fictional and Kimani, the author controls the narrative. Before the Rooster Crows is a historical novel and the author is out to right a historical injustice committed in 1980.
How does he do it? Stay with me…
Following the injustice occasioned on his girlfriend, through the courts, Muriuki tracks down Mumbi’s killer and strangles him to death.
Cue another trial, this time with Muriuki on the dock. Meanwhile, there is huge outcry and judge – the same one who freed Desertstorm – recuses himself from the case. It becomes clear that justice might finally be done, or would it?
In the intervening period, a bill is brought before parliament to the effect that the president can intervene in an ongoing case and deliver judgement. That is precisely what was done and Muriuki was sentenced to death.
This was obviously a case of foreign interference, just like in Njeri’s case, to arrive at crooked justice.
However, in the realm of fiction, the author has is in charge and that is how he ensured that Mumbi gets some justice, no matter how rough.
Now, since we did not learn from the 1980 murder, that is why history had to repeat itself with the Nanyuki murder.
This book is a must read for anyone interested in good writing. I wonder why the fellows at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) have to engage in the charade of looking for setbooks, when such a gem gathers dust on bookshelves.
Kimani’s publishers, EAEP, should tell readers if the book is still in circulation.
Kimani is also the author of Dance of the Jakaranda, another historical novel, which is doing well internationally.
Henry Chakava, has been referred to as the father of African publishing for good reason.
He would have easily made a career in the academy but he chose publishing instead. In 1972, he joined the then Heinemann Educational Publishers as an editor. In a span of six years, he had risen to the position of managing director.
In the early nineties he bought the company from its UK owners and named it East African Educational Publishers. However, the most enduring part of his story is how he led his company to publish more than 2,000 tiles of culturally relevant books – which include fiction – the largest by a local publishing house.
He managed this by balancing between publishing school publishing – the bread and butter of local publishing – and publishing for leisure/fiction.
Despite the fact that his employers, Heinemann, were the publishers of the successful African Writers Series, he kept receiving manuscripts which he felt would fit into a new genre of adventure, romance and crime.
He floated the idea to his bosses in the UK but they flatly rejected the idea. He would not take no for an answer and went ahead to start the Spear Series, which became so successful, that Heinemann had to start a series of their own called Heartbeat.
Chakava received the manuscript of My Life in Crime from Kamiti Maximum Prison, where the author, John Kiriamiti, had been imprisoned for robbery with violence. To date, My Life in Crime remains Kenya’s best-selling novel.
It should be remembered that Chakava is also Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s publisher. For Chakava, publishing Ngugi was a challenge, a risk and reward. Challenge in the sense that as a committed writer, he expects the publisher to share his vision. And for that he has given Chakava all the due respect.
Another challenge had to do with distribution of his works following Heinemann’s take over by East African Educational Publishers. Without the network of distributing the works abroad, Chakava had the daunting task of distributing them.
The risk came from the fact that Ngugi, in the 70s, was deemed as anti-government, controversial and a rebel. And that came with a stigma. And isolation. And the reward came because Ngugi’s books were intellectually and commercially rewarding as a recognised name.
When, in 1980 word spread that Chakava was about to publish Ngugi’s book, Caitani Mutharabaini, (Devil on the Cross) written in detention, he started receiving threatening phone calls. When the aggrieved parties – suspected to be government agents – saw that he was unrelenting, they decided to move their dastardly action to the next level; assassination. Chakava was waylaid as he was about to enter his Lavington home, by thugs armed with all manner of crude weapons. He was only saved by headlights of an oncoming vehicle. The thugs dispersed but not before a machete, aimed at his head, almost severed his small finger.
Growing up in the village, you would occasionally overhear grown-ups say things like: “Huyu mtoto ni mwerevu kuliko miaka yake.” This was often in reference to youngsters perceived to be intelligent beyond their years.
Now that I am a certified elder, the above notion crosses my mind every time I read a post – mostly on Facebook – authored by Silas Nyanchwani. That is why whenever he makes an announcement to the effect that he has a book out, I want read what he has written.
His first offering Sexorcised, had some sections that left me blushing. While I can’t remember the last time I read a novel in the erotica genre, Nyanchwani proved that we have some hidden talent amongst us, wah!
But I digress.
I am here to talk, or rather, to write about 50 Memos to Men – his latest book – and I have been wondering to myself, where does the author get wisdom to talk about relationships so authoritatively? Isn’t this a case of mtoto kuwa mwerevu kuliko miaka yake?
Anyone who doesn’t know Nyanchwani, getting the chance to read Memos, would most likely assume that this the product of a greying man, with grey, bushy eyebrows, given to wearing frumpy sweaters, peering above horn-rimmed spectacles, balanced on the bridge of their nose.
First of all, how long has Nyanchwani been in the marriage institution, if at all he is married, for him to be dispensing such wisdom? Just the other day, Nyanchwani and I worked at The Nairobian, when the tabloid was flying off newsstands. Then, he was writing a column, whose content always rubbed the female gender the wrong way. Such was the controversy.
So where did he learn these things?
Then and now, I always marvelled at how, this quiet, soft-spoken young man courts controversy so effortlessly, like the time he attacked Mukimo – one of my favourite dishes – so badly, I think I trolled him on Facebook. Awachane na Mukimo kabisa.
Again I digress.
After I finished reading Memos, I got away with the feeling that this can only be the product of careful observation of human behaviour. Everything he writes resonates deeply and ticks all the right boxes. We all have our fair share of relationships, hence reading the book is like walking into a room full of familiar faces. Whatever is written here, resonates so deeply at a personal level.
Talking about familiarity, well familiar faces come with different memories, not all of them good. Some can be downright traumatic like when one suffers a painful heartbreak (character development?) So, what is the advice for men who have suffered break-ups? “…once she tells you it is over, bro, don’t ever beg…nothing you will ever do will win her back,” says the book, adding. “When a woman breaks up with you, 99 per cent of the time, she has a backup plan.” Savage.
One thing I enjoy about Nyanchwani’s writing is that he gives it to you straight, like bitter, but effective medicine. Call it tough love, but Memos is not about babysitting grown men, who think the world waits for them to make up their minds. The kind of advice dispensed in this book is a bit like the child that rans to its father, eyes bawled up, from an altercation in the playground, only for the parent to give them a proper hiding; to man them up. Hakuna kubembeleza.
Nyanchwani has this unique ability to bring out, on paper, the things you only think about in the deep recesses of the mind; making it look so easy, yet packing them with so much sense. That, to me, is the sign of a good writer.
It is rather obvious why most women get exasperated by his writing; he almost always gives men ‘bad’ advice. Listen to this “…unless she is your mother or sister, don’t even give a woman money…my stingiest friends get laid more, or even get paid for their cabling services…trust me, men who treat women better hardly get anything good in return.” Hmm…
Isn’t it funny how he pummels women’s sensibilities, yet they keep coming for more. Well, that is what eloquent, persuasive writing does for you.
Still, his is not the blind, see-no-evil hear-no-evil, embrace of men. He calls them out when they do stupid things that hurt good women. Such men are afforded the worst contempt in the book. As a man, you do not want to be caught on the wrong side of his pen.
I have seen a number of social media personalities crown themselves the title ‘Men’s President’, but most are trash talking, bottom feeding online busybodies with nary in the way of brains. To me, Nyanchwani, with his smooth cerebral writing is more deserving of that title.
When I opened the book’s cover, I feared it would come out as the glue that did the binding appeared to have spilled over, however, after handling it for a number of times, the gluing seems to be just fine. And yes, I like the cover design; very creative.
Now, apart from a few typos here and there, which can be smoothened by a good editor, this is a book I highly recommend. I learnt a lot.
About being the tallest writer in Africa – I am short, so this cuts to the quick – I wonder, whom between Nyanchwani and Clifford Oluoch is shorter.
