Shailja Patel

Shailja Patel is one of Kenya’s more respected poets both of the reading and performance version as well as a human rights activist. The US based artist is also highly respect for her work Migritude a 90-minute spoken-word theatre show. It uses her trousseau of saris, passed down by her mother, to unfold hidden histories of women’s lives in the bootprint of Empire, from India to East Africa. Migritude is also a book you can buy on Amazon.

The performer last week unveiled her latest work in Nairobi’s Goethe Institut a public lecture “Unsilence! Writers & Society: A Public Lecture” which is a series of poems and other pieces. The event was attended by a cross section of those in the Nairobi literary community with a strong showing from Pen Kenya led by its president Khainga O’ Okwemba. They included Prof Chris Wanjala, Prof Elizabeth Orchardson-Mazrui, Dr Tom Odhiambo, Dr Waveney Olembo, Eliphas Nyamogo and Tony Mochama.

Here are some images from that event.

Prof. Wambui Mwangi

 

Author Marjorie Oludhe-Macgoye.

PEN Kenya President Khainga O’Okwemba

 

Kwani Trust Board Chairman Tom Maliti.

PEN Kenya Chair and Nairobi University Literature lecturer Prof Chris Wanjala

Kenyatta University Lecturer Prof Elizabeth Orchardson- Mazrui

Kenyatta University lecturer Dr. Waveney Olembo

Poet Stephen Partington

PEN Kenya Secretary General Tony Mochama