In mid-August, at the award ceremony of the ‘Indie Book Prize,’ it was houseful at the auditorium of the French Cultural Centre in Nairobi, where the crowd had turned up and out to see the poet Jerusha Kananu crowned queen of the Indie writers for her poetry book Echoes of Military Voices.
At about the same time, the Nairobi Literary Festival, a three-day affair whose theme this year was ‘Mtaa Narratives’ was running at the Macmillan Library - a venue chosen specifically because Book Bunk, one of the main sponsors of the festival believes libraries ought to be places that are ‘accessible to heritage, and where people interact freely with culture, so …’
It looks like “home” is this year’s literary theme too, because last Thursday thespian Mshai Mwangola was moderating a literary panel which was grappling with questions like “Is Home where you were born?” alongside the Past and “what do we consider home?”
This was like an advance party of the Macondo Festival in mid-September, where the same Mshai will now be hosting Aminata Forna on similar questions, in a literary festival that will feature writers including Yussef Fadel of Morocco, Hemley Boum of Cameroon, Kossi Komla of Togo/ Italy, Kalaf Epangala of Angola/Portugal and Kenya’s own Yvonne Awuor Odhiambo.
But first, early in September, the new Qwani? Crew of millennials founded by Keith Agana and with members like Yvonne Mwangi, Marion Mbakaya and Lewis Miller Kaphira will have a literary sheng afternoon at the same Alliance Francaise — featuring the different ‘shengs’ that have occupied our urban spaces over the past 20 years.
Later on in the month, Kenya will host the Nairobi International Book Fair at the Sarit Centre, organised by the Kenya Publishers Association and featuring publishing firms in the region.
