Tag Archives: Shailja Patel

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Migritude takes over as Nigerian wins Caine Prize 2013

Tope Folarin.

Migritude was first coined by Kenya Poet and human rights activist Shailja Patel. The concept involves people who leave one space to another for whatever reason be it political, economical or otherwise. The concept has been seen of late quite a bit in literature of people from this continent with both Chimamanda Adichie (Americah) and Noviolet Bulawayo (We need new names) recently unleashing novels about Africans emigrating to the United States.

It looks like this is the wave to watch as the Caine Prize for African literature 2013 was announced last night as Nigeria’s Tope Folarin was announced winner at a dinner held at the Bodleaian Library in Oxford, United Kingdom. Folarin’s story What makes a ‘real African‘?

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Scenes from Shailja Patel’s Unsilence! Public lecture

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