Tag Archives: Binyavanga Wainaina

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Nairobi goes gaga for Chimamanda Adichie

Chimamanda rocks Nairobi.

The Kwani Trust turned ten years old this year and the trust that built its name as they new face of Kenyan literature hosted several events to celebrate this fact.

I was one of the many Nairobi folks that filled the University of Nairobi 8-4-4 hall on Friday last week. The crowd was full and they were here to listen to Chimamanda ‘s memorial lecture. The list I can think off from memory was impressive on its own. Muthoni Garland. Aleya Kassam. Terry Hirst. Millicent Muthoni. Naliaka Wafula. Mwenda Wa Micheni. Joseph Ngunjiri aka Mbugua Ngunjiri. Khainga O’Okwemba. Beth Nduta. Fred Mbogo. Neo Musangi. Njeri Wangari aka The Kenyan Poet. Kingwa Kimencu. If they have been a part of the creative business you were probably here and you were joined by a many students of the university and fans of the Nigerian writer.

The event went like most university events happen in Kenya. Performances by a group in this case the university travelling troupe. Very good. Poetry by Phyllis Muthoni. Decent. Speeches by several folks. Binyavanga Wainaina spoke about the awesomeness of Adichie. Prof Wanjiku Kaberia was hilarious in her usual understated manner. The Principal of the School of humanities Prof. Njeru Enos H. Nthia was even more hilarious as he read the Vice Chancellor’s speech.

After the preamble which took quite a while, the reason we were all here was upon us. Chimamanda came on the stage and started talking. Hers was a chat about her journey as a writer from the University of Nsukka in Nigeria to moving to the US and all the way to where she currently was. She had planned on being a doctor but moved to being a communications person and eventually started writing and she never stopped.

At this time she told us about Binyananga Wainaina and how they had met online and how and their journey together. She also gave tribute to the job that the Kwani Trust had been doing over the last decade. It was quite an endorsement from the highly decorated writer.

The talk was quite good but what happened after was even more interesting. The questions being fielded by Chimamanda were not the interrogative ones that you would expect from the battle hardened journo. These were tributes by fans being given the author disguised as questions to just say they spoke to their hero. They mostly started their enquiries with “By the way Chimamanda I’m your number one fan/biggest fan.” There was a breathless quality to their questions; like they could not believe that they were in the same room with the person that wrote Half of a Yellow Sun/Purple Hibiscus. One even gave a tearful tale about her using all her money to buy Half of a Yellow Sun and having to call for fare from her mum. It was touching.

Once the talk ended it became even more interesting. Chimamanda was mobbed by fans needing autographs. I have been covering the arts for a while and I am familiar with rabid fans; in music, acting and sports. I saw the madness when P-square, Shaggy and Usain Bolt came to Kenya but I have never for the life of me seen people almost injuring a writer for their autograph.

Do Nairobians love Chimamanda Adichie? Hell yeah. Now if only we can get the same from a local writer. Seriously.

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Writers make it a memorable Sunday Salon

Adam Foulds with this blogger

That Eric Wainaina place that used to be called Kifaru Gardens and is now called Elephant House was where all the roads led to on Sunday afternoon for the literary inclined for Sunday Salon. The Sunday Salon is an event where literature fans got to hear writers read their own work in a relaxed environment. The line up on the day was to be off the hook; Nadifa Mohamed, Adam Foulds, Billy Kahora and others. And it was one of those evenings I will be remembering for a while.

The afternoon started with spinning by the Just a Band crew who were just in from the showing their stuff from the TED conference recently. Blinky Bill (real name Bill Selanga) who is the most memorable face in the crowd with his beard gave the fans some varied music – house then African African before proceedings proper started.

Then we heard a word from the sponsors of the whole do including Hugh Moffat who is the country director for the British Council Kenya and the Kwani Trust executive director Angela Wachuka. They gave speeches welcoming us to the main activities of the afternoon.

We would be listening to works of writers who had been doing workshops with some British writers Adam Foulds and Nadifa Mohamed for the last few days. The people who got on the stage to speak were quite a few but I have state my favourite was the non prose performer that is Ngwatilo Mawiyoo. She did several pieces but her piece lambasting that guy for that ill advised article in the East African was the most powerful.

The writers on stage included Billy Kahora and a new writer called Abdul as well as the aforementioned Mohammed and Foulds. They were OK. However for me the real opportunity was to chat with writers away from the structured confines of the stage. There was Binyavanga Wainaina and there was Tony Mochama in there and there was Stephen Partington in there. There was newly Kwani shortlisted writer Timothy Kiprop Kimutai who has the opportunity as much as anyone to be the next big thing from Kenyan literature. There were also some writers from South Africa and Nigeria and Zimbabwe. It was an all out writer pig out that you can rarely get in this town.

I’m really looking forward to the next Sunday Salon. Whenever that is.

P.S. Winyo performing on that stage. Awesome.

Singer Winyo with the blogger.

Performer Ngwatilo Mawiyoo brings it.

Billy Kahora is Managing Editor of Kwani.

British Council Kenya Country director Hugh “Hug” Moffat

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Caine Prize 2013 short list named; Nope, no Kenyans

Gaze at the face of Nigeria’s Rotimi Babatunde the 2012 winner and get motivated.

The Caine Prize for African writing was announced yesterday and the list was quite surprising to say the very least; four Nigerians and 1 Sierra Leonian. No other nationality was named in what many consider one of Africa’s leading writing prizes.

Kenyans have a pretty cool relationship with two Binyavanga Wainaina and Yvonne Owuor winning it in 2002 and 2003. Wainaina’s piece was “Discovering Home” and Yvonne’s was “Weight of Whispers.”

Its been dry since. Almost literary desert like with only Parsalelo Kantai in 2004 (“Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys’ Band”) and Muthoni Garland in 2006 (Tracking the Scent of My Mother) being nominated. Last year was much better for us (Kenya) with Billy Kahora’s story on some drunk going to confront his bosses in the office “Urban Zoning” according us the first nomination in a while.

I am not going to lament that the Caine Prize team failed to do regional representation with their nominations. I am going ask Kenyan fiction writers to up their game. The winner of this prize has good things coming their way starting with a £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 8 July. And then there is the profile you raise when you get in those spaces.

So Kenyan, I urge you to read the following shortlisted nominees, get tips and go for the 2014 edition:

All the best Kenya people. Also Ugandan people. And Tanzanian people. Basically all None-Nigerian and Sierra Leone people.

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A buffet of Kenyan authors at the Junction Mall

If you are following the literature space from out of Nairobi you would probably believe that the only people who have written books in Kenya are Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Binyavanga Wainaina. The truth is that there are many people who have written books in Kenya with less exotic names and the chances to see them aren’t that many.
Well for those who say that there are no novels in Kenya The Junction Mall on Ngong Road in Nairobi will be the place to be as a battalion of writers invade the mall. Some of the authors who have already seen their work featured on this blog include;

  • Muthoni Likimani
  • Joseph Ngunjiri
  • Binyavanga Wainaina
  • Stanely Gazemba
  • Nganga Mbugua

The list is exhaustive and it actually includes novelists, motivational writers, “memoirists” (I really that word exists) and more. It includes TV stars past Joyce Mbaya of Apprentice Africa fame and present John Sibi-Okumu of Kiss TV and everyone in between. If you want to meet them; buy their books; take photos with them etc you want to head out to the Junction on Saturday from 11am to 4pm.
In case you are wondering its free but you are encouraged to buy a book.