Categories
Events News Personalities

Why Kiyiapi’s presence at the Nairobi International Book Fair means so much to Kenyan publishers

Kenya’s Education Permanent Secretary Prof James ole Kiyiapi will, on Thursday, September 23 preside over the official opening of the 13th edition of the Nairobi International Book Fair, at the Sarit Centre in Nairobi.

The very fact that Prof Kiyiapi has agreed to officiate at the event is not lost to players in the publishing industry. This can be translated as a sign of improving relations between Kenya Publishers Association (KPA), the organisers of the book fair and the Ministry of Education, based at Jogoo House in Nairobi.

Relations between publishers and Jogoo House had deteriorated to an all-time low, with publishers complaining that former a Prof Karega Mutahi, the immediate former Education PS, was arrogant and high handed.

Publishers however had their last laugh after Prof Mutahi was caught up in a maelstrom of corruption allegations, over textbook funds, and was suspended by President Kibaki, following sustained pressure from the public, donors and civil society.

To say that publishers breathed a sigh of relief would be an understatement as textbooks are the bread and butter of a majority of Kenyan publishers. If money meant for school books was being misappropriated, then it meant that publishers were unable to make ends meets.

At some point publishers were heard complaining that Jogoo House was getting too chummy with booksellers, falling over themselves to fulfill the whims of booksellers while publishers looked on green-eyed.

A case in point was when ministry officials allowed booksellers to publish names of booksellers cleared to sell books under the Free Primary Education (FPE) in the Orange book. All this was done behind the backs of publishers.

Thus when Prof Kiyiapi was moved from Medical Services to Education ministry, publishers made the earliest efforts of being seen to be in his good books. At a recent meeting between the publishers and the PS, publishers asked him to consider removing the six-book ceiling on books approved to be used in public schools.

Under the six-book ceiling public schools can only chose from a list of six books per subject. This means that even if ten books have met the required standard by KIE, only six books would pass. The rest would either go to waste or publishers would be forced to market them to private schools. Publishers are not known to be very good marketers.

This means that publishers whose books were not approved incurred heavy losses.

It is understood that at the meeting, the PS promised to look at the issue and was in agreement with publishers that the six-book ceiling needs to be done away with.

It now remains to be seen whether the ministry will effect the removal of the offending six-book ceiling.

Back to the school books scandal. The effect of schools failing to get funds for buying books meant that revenues for publishers were not getting money for books they had already published and thus their revenues severely affected.

The result is that publishers found themselves in dire financial circumstances and most were forced to retrench their staff.

The 13th Nairobi International Book Fair is therefore being held against a backdrop of declining business on the part of publishers. This is evidenced by the fact that there will be very few new books being launched this time round.

And that is why Prof Kiyiapi’s presence at the Book Fair is viewed as a major victory for publishers.

Categories
Events Issues News Personalities Releases

Ngugi wa Thiong’o on Kenyan writing, Kwani? and other stories

When Ngugi wa Thiong’o was in the country for the launch of his latest book Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir, yours truly had a chance to talk with him, and the interview touched on a number of issues. Among other issues he urged young writers not to shy away from self-publishing their works. For a long time the self-publishing route was taken as a last resort, after publishers shut their doors on a writer.

Ngugi (centre) with his wife Njeeri (Right) and PLO Lumumba (left) during the book launch at the National Museums of Kenya

While self publishing is fraught with risks, I think it is time writers gave it a shot. Why am I saying this? Well, as far as Kenyan publishers are concerned, creative works are nothing more than engaging Corporate Social Responsibility. Let me explain: after they have made tonnes of money from publishing textbooks, their conscience pricks them and they decide to do one or two consumer books, as a way of giving back to the society.

The tragedy is that they do not give these books too much thought and therefore do not really market these books. It is therefore not unusual to find good books lying in their warehouses, and they are not being taken to bookshops. Thus don’t be surprised if you walked into a bookstore to request for a Kenyan book only to be told that it is not available. Believe you me, I have been published and I know how it feels for a person to tell you they cannot find your book in a bookstore, including the main ones in Nairobi.

Even when the books are in bookstores, publishers do not bother to make noise about them. Tell me publishers, how do you expect readers – do not give me crap about Kenyans not reading – to know about a book you have published if you do not make them aware of its existence in the market? Is it too much to buy space in the media to shout about your new book?

You see the problem is such that you have become so reliant on the school market to move your textbooks, without breaking a sweat, that you have become complacent.

I recently had a talk with a motivational author who told me that he has moved more copies of a book he self published, than one that was done by a publisher, and in a relatively shorter time. Go figure.

During the interview I asked Ngugi for his opinion on why we are not seeing new novels – not short stories – from young Kenyan writers. Being the good person that he is, Ngugi told me that he did not want to pass “negative judgment” on young Kenyan writers. He urged patience saying that writing is a long process, and that we would eventually be shocked by what these young writers, particularly Kwani? might unleash on us in the future.

I don’t know what Ngugi told the Kwani? crew about our interview, when he later met them, because later that evening at the launch of his book, at the National Museums I was cornered by Billy Kahora, the Kwani? editor, who demanded to know why I had been asking Ngugi “leading questions.” It so happened that Binyanvanga Wainaina, Kwani’s founder, with dyed hair on his head, was nearby and he joined in on the ‘grilling’ . “I just laughed,” Binya sniggered. He was referring to his reaction to whatever Ngugi had told them.

With all due respect, I would love for someone to point out a novel – again not short story – that has been written by the Kwani? franternity, or better still, take a look at this year’s Wahome Mutahi Literary Prize nominees, here and show me a book written by a Kwani? person, and I will show you who is splitting hairs.

You can read the rest of the Ngugi story here.

Categories
Issues News Personalities Releases Reviews

Get rich quick, by Alfred Mutua, really?

Ever since I heard that Kenya’s government spokesman Alfred Mutua has written a book on, wait for it, How to be rich in Africa, I knew something was amiss somewhere. With all due respect Mutua was the last person I expected to write on such a topic. He must have hustled his way to a top position in government, but he is not the ideal example of a wealthy person, leave alone claiming to advice people on how to make money.

I firmly believe what he has achieved is largely due to his influential position in government and not as a result of any any business acumen. But that is not to say that he is not a brilliant man. I will however refrain from going any deeper into the book before reading it. My interest in his book was renewed after I read its review written by Evan Mwangi in the Business Daily today. This is one of the most interesting reviews I have read in a long time. The reviewer pulled no punches.

“I bought my copy of his (Alfred Mutua’s) How to be Rich in Africa and other Secrets of Survival in Africa in a fancy bookshop in Nairobi and got disappointed immediately for spending my Sh600 on such a book,” writes Mwangi. “My instinct was to throw the book in a trash can together with my used paper towels or return it to the bookstore without claiming my money back.”

That is harsh you might say, but then wait till you hear this; “My ultimate take away lesson is: never let any shilling from your grasp. If by mistake you happen to buy a useless book, don’t be tempted to throw it away in anger. Review it for the best-paying newspaper before selling it to recoup some of your losses.” – emphasis mine.

You can read the rest of Mwangi’s review here.

Unlike Mwangi, I am not willing to risk my sh600 – I have better use for my money – I don’t have much! A colleague has promised to lend me his copy. I will go through it and post my review here. so watch this space…

Categories
Events Issues News Personalities

Nairobi International Book Fair will blow you mind away

The Annual Nairobi International Book Fair, now in its 13th edition is set to take place from September 22 to 26, at the Sarit Centre in Nairobi. Maishayetu spoke to Mr Lawrence Njagi, the chairman of the Book Fair on what is in store for book lovers. Mr Njagi is also the managing director of Mountain Top Publishers.

Mr. Lawrence Njagi

Maishayetu: What does the 13th Nairobi International Book Fair (NIBF) have in store for potential visitors this year?
Lawrence Njagi: As the premier book show in the East African region visitors should come to the book fair expecting to see the best that the region has to offer in terms of books. This means that visitors should be able to interact with these books under one roof, and in a relaxed atmosphere, without being hassled by salespeople.
This is also about the only opportunity that book lovers are able to meet and interact with their favourite authors. What is more, these books are offered at highly discounted rates. This means that bookshops and libraries should take advantage of this offer to stock up. We will also be conducting seminars and workshops on relevant topics like intellectual property rights and digital publishing. Aspiring writers will also benefit from a seminar on how to successfully get published.
All in all, all visitors to the NIBF, from children, the youth and grownups should come to the Fair in the knowledge that their needs will be adequately catered for.
Q: You have been chairman of the NIBF for the last three years now, what have been your achievements so far?
A: When I took over as chairman of NIBF, the average number of visitors to the Fair was 6,000, by last year that number had risen to 17,000. We expect more visitors this year. Two years in a row, all the stands have been fully booked, and the demand for stands is growing. This means increased revenue for NIBF.
This year, we are having the largest number of international exhibitors at the Fair; five from India, two from Nigeria, one each from Senegal, China and Ethiopia. Of course we have the usual exhibitors from Uganda and Tanzania. This is not forgetting other international visitors who are not necessarily exhibitors. This is thanks to the aggressive marketing campaign, we have put in place.
In addition we now publish a free-to-distribute magazine which gives readers relevant information on the book industry.
Q: Kenyan publishers have been accused of being too textbook-oriented and therefore neglecting creative writing.
A: Before you heap all the blame on publishers, it is good to take a look at the bigger picture. A closer look at the system of education in Kenya reveals that it is too exam oriented; therefore putting to much pressure the student to pass exams at all costs. That rigid culture leaves little room for leisure reading, hence the reason many Kenyans don’t see the need to read after they are through with official schooling.
Q: Aren’t publishers contributing to the problem then?
A: First of all you have to understand that publishers are first and foremost business people looking to make maximum returns, and there is no denying the fact that textbooks provide a good source of profits to publishers. But we also have a moral duty to serve the emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of readers, and that is where non-textbooks like motivational and fiction fall. All we are saying is that the government needs to put in place policies that encourage leisure reading, a good starting point would be an overhaul of the current system of education.
Q: Still, that does not take away the fact that publishers do not market non-textbook materials well…
A: Let me say that when a book is not well marketed, both the publisher and author suffers as both have invested heavily in the publication. This is therefore a call to publishers to cast their net wider as far as marketing their books are concerned. Let publishers make use of all forms of media, print, electronic, the Internet even, to make noise about the availability of their books. In addition to bookshops, we at Mountain Top sell our books in all major supermarkets around the country. Authors too should come up with ideas on how well to market their books.
Q: You mentioned a seminar on digital publishing, are Kenyan publishers ready to embrace this new technology?
A: Publishers need to be dynamic and be able to embrace new technology as it comes along. However, the reality is such that majority of Kenyans still do not have access to electricity, and thus computers are out of reach for many. Stil, there is a generation of Kenyans that is quite well versed in digital technology and these ones have to be taken care of as well.

Categories
Events Issues News Personalities

Moraa:I have worked hard for Penguin nomination

No Kenyan publisher has ever taken Moraa Gitaa seriously. And while they have generally given her manuscripts a wide berth, Penguin Books, one of the world’s most respected publishers, thinks otherwise.

Out of the 250 manuscripts received all over Africa for the inaugural Penguin Prize for Africa Writing, Moraa’s and five others became the eventual nominees in the fiction category. The awarding ceremony will take place in South Africa next month. And if she wins the award, she stands to take home a cool half a million shillings (R50,000).

The other nominees are Kenya’s Mukoma wa Ngugi, Ellen Aaku from Zambia, Chika Ezeanya from Nigeria, Shubnum Khan from South Africa and another South African Isabella Morris. “Of all the nominees, I am the only one based in the continent,” she says with a touch of pride.

The award seeks to highlight the diverse writing talent on the African continent and make new African fiction and non-fiction available to a wider readership. Apart from the prize money, the winners will also benefit from a publishing contract with Penguin Books South Africa, with worldwide distribution via Penguin Group companies.

Among other things, the judges will be looking for freshness and originality that represent the finest examples of contemporary fiction out of Africa. In the non-fiction category the judges will be looking for serious narratives that examine and explore African issues and experiences for both local and international audiences in an engaging, thought provoking and enlightening way.

Moraa, who is in her mid thirties, believes that her manuscript meets the bill and is confident of winning the overall prize. “I deserve it,” she says defiantly.

When she had earlier presented the same manuscript to a Kenyan publisher, it came back with a rejection note accusing her of having ‘an extremely wild imagination.’

Such a put down would have left an average writer utterly devastated and unable to continue writing, but evidently, Moraa is not your average writer. “I licked my wounds and decided that if no Kenyan publisher is interested in my work, I would look for a publisher outside the country,” she says with a determined look in her face. “I have gone through more trying times in the course of my writing and there was no way I was going to allow such a comment to break my spirit.”

Without elaborating Moraa, who calls herself a pro-women and children’s writer, says her writing gives ‘profound insights’ into the human condition, “and for that you are labeled a controversial writer.”

She explains that she started writing the manuscript way back in 1997. At some point, in 2003, while still writing the manuscript, she developed pneumonia, yet she was staying in Mombasa, the last place you expect a person to catch a cold-related ailment.

“I almost died while writing this manuscript,” she says with a rueful smile. Then, she was working as an administrator in a busy nightclub at the coastal resort city. And in order to get some quiet time to work on her manuscript, she would cover herself in what she thought was warm clothing and sneak into the cold room, where she would put pen on paper, literary.

The effect of those stolen moments in the cold room was the pneumonia she developed later. “The people who knew what I was doing at that time believed I was genuinely mad,” she says. “But if following my passion means that I am labeled mad then so be it.”

Not even the pneumonia could douse the burning ambition she had of becoming a writer. In 2007, she moved to Nairobi, where has been working as a part time editorial consultant. “I shifted from Mombasa as I thought that Nairobi held more promise in terms of getting published,” she explains.

It was not in vain as the following year another of her manuscripts won the National Book Development Council of Kenya (NBDCK) literary award, and with it came a modest cash award of Sh30,000.

When she could not get a publisher locally she took yet another of her manuscripts to Nsemia Publishers, based in Canada. Unfortunately for her the book Crucible for Silver and Furnace for Gold could not be accepted for the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, for the mere reason that it was published outside Kenya, never mind that Nsemia is owned by a Kenyan.

With the nomination Moraa now feels that her hard work and perseverance is finally being recognized. She adds that it should also serve as enough reason for Kenyans and East Africans for that matter to start dusting their long neglected manuscripts. “If you have a passion for writing you should not give up just because there are not enough opportunities in your home country,” she says.

That is the only way East Africans can ever hope to match their Western and Southern African counterparts, she adds.

If she wins the award, Moraa says that part of the prize money would go towards developing a centre for children with learning challenges. This has been motivated by the fact that her daughter, now fifteen, was born with dyslexia.

Categories
Personalities Releases Reviews

Dreams in a time of war

As a little boy growing up in Limuru, writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o was, one night, woken up by his mother to meet some ‘visitors’. Young Ngugi was pleasantly surprised to find that one of the visitors was his elder brother Wallace Mwangi, also known as good Wallace.
Years back, Good Wallace had escaped to the forest, under a hail of bullets, to become a Mau Mau freedom fighter. Now Ngugi was about to sit his toughest exam yet, the Kenya African Preliminary Exams (KAPE), and his brother had risked capture, even possible execution, in the hands of colonial soldiers or their local home guard collaborators, to come and wish him success in the exams.


The risk was pronounced by the fact that Kabae, one of Ngugi’s many step-brothers, was now working for the colonial forces as an intelligence officer. A few days after Good Wallace’s visit Kabae also visited to wish Ngugi success, or had he gotten wind of Good Wallace’s visit?
Young as he was Ngugi had to learn to live with the conflicting emotions and contradiction in their large family. After all, this was in 1954, two years after a state of emergency was declared in Central Kenya, thereby marking the darkest period in colonial Kenya.
Ngugi, Kenya’s foremost literary personality, captures these experiences in Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir. In this book, Ngugi once again asserts his reputation as a sublime story-teller.
With his creative power, Ngugi transports the reader into the mind of a young boy and lets them see things through the lenses of a child. Here, a child’s innocence and naiveté forms part of the narrative.
Only rarely does the grown-up and intellectually sophisticated Ngugi show his hand, in the narrative, often laced with subtle humour. Just as this is Ngugi-the-child’s show the author, as much as possible, lets Ngugi the child do the narration.
Just as a child’s universe is impressionable and full of imagination, so is this book.
Ngugi’s formative years coincided with the rise of African nationalism, which was informed by the participation of Africans the First and Second World Wars. This is where Africans realised that the white man, just like them, was mortal after all. This, in effect triggered the struggle for equal rights by demobilised African soldiers, who felt cheated after not getting land, like their white counterparts.
Then, Ngugi, in his childish imaginations, pictured the early nationalists in larger-than-life dimensions. To him, people like Harry Thuku, and later Jomo Kenyatta, and Mbiyu Koinange, were mythical, even magical characters.
He for example imagined the Germans, who at the defeat of the Second World War, surrendered to his step-brother Kabae, who had gone to fight, on the side of Britain in far off Burma, among other exotic sounding places.
As for Kenyatta, the author’s adoration for the mythical figure was to turn sour, when the man, as Kenya’s first president, consigned Ngugi to detention without trial, in 1977.
Much has been made about how Ngugi, in this book, has shed off some of his controversial views and opinions, but when you put into consideration that at that age Ngugi had not yet formed those opinions, then critics making those observations are jumping the gun.
By the time this book comes to an end, Ngugi has just stepped into Alliance High School for his secondary education, so you do not expect a person at that stage to know, let alone appreciate, ideologies like Marxism and other controversial ideas that make Ngugi what he is today.
Maybe critics, who have made careers attacking Ngugi’s every move, should practice some restraint and wait for that point when he tells how he came to embrace those controversial ideas, and why, only then can they take him on.
Apart from growing up under the horrors emergency rule, the author had other things to worry about. He for example had to go out in search of jobs in other people’s farms to supplement the little income his mother earned.
This was in addition to the fact that at a tender age Ngugi and his younger brother, Njinju, had to endure the ignominy of being chased away from home by their father to go and join their mother who had earlier escaped her matrimonial home to escape her husband’s beatings.
Maybe as a way of escaping from those difficulties young Ngugi sought refuge in books, and especially the Old Testament, which had the effect of transporting him to an enchanting world away from the reality of his suffering. Thus a long-life bond between him and the written word was formed.
And all this was as a result of a pact he made with his mother to go to school and do his best. “Was that the best you could do?” was the constant refrain from his mother whenever he brought home a result or the other from school. It also served to inspire him to work even harder.
By deciding to write his memoirs in instalments, Ngugi took the risk of turning off readers who might argue that there is nothing spectacular about a book dealing exclusively with one’s childhood.
His life was not much different from other children growing up at around the same time and under the same circumstances. But then, it takes a special writer to turn otherwise mundane details of growing up into a highly readable and entertaining book.
Most readers have a rough idea about Ngugi’s life story. They also know that the more interesting and controversial aspects of his life lie ahead of Dreams, which means that future instalments of his memoirs will be highly anticipated.
Maybe for future instalments, Ngugi’s Local publishers EAEP should consider releasing their local edition at around the same time as the American and British editions. That way, EAEP would take advantage of the international hype created on the book to move more copies.

Categories
Events Issues News Personalities

Should we expect a new book from Akinyi?

News that Judith Akinyi could have gone back to her old drugs trade did not exactly catch me by surprise. Although I did not interact with her on a one-on-one basis, after she was released from jail, I nevertheless saw her on many occasions during literary events when she was in the process of promoting her book Deadly Money Maker. The book detailed her experiences as a drug trafficker and on being jailed at the Lang’ata Women’s Prison for the same. Why do I say that it did not come as a surprise to me? First of all, seeing this woman at different events I always got the impression that something was amiss with her. She just did not look settled to me. Could it be that after the publishing of her book she expected ‘more’ from the society? Did she expect to become an instant millionaire from the sale of her book? Hadn’t someone told her in Kenya books don’t move that fast? Or better still hadn’t someone told her that Kenyan book publishers are not exactly good marketers of creative works? Well, after she came out of jail, she became a mini celebrity, what with every media outlet seeking to do an interview with her.

The Standard even made her their columnist. She might her gotten her publicity but the money did not come as fast as she would have expected, and she was starting to get anxious. Shortly after she was released, and the Nairobi literary scene could not get enough of her, I made the following observation on this blog: “All this hype will definitely do a lot of good to the book, which might boost its sales. Hopefully then, she might not be tempted to go back into crime. One thing though, all this hype risks getting into her head…” At that time I had called her with a view to interviewing her for the Sunday Nation, but she flatly refused, asking me to pay her first. That is when I knew that this woman was not genuine, and that she had not reformed. Save from the post on my blog, I never dared contradict fellow literary people who could see nothing wrong with Akinyi. Now that she has been arrested again for the same offence, my only hope is that she pens another book, this time, a blockbuster, from the ‘comfort’ of an European jail cell. I also hope that this time around afungue roho and tell it all. After reading Deadly Money Maker I got the impression that she withheld a lot of information…

Categories
Issues Personalities

Is Tony Mochama Taban’s literary son?

Good people,

I came across this email, written by Prof Chris Wanjala, and posted in the Pen Kenya google group, and I thought it was interesting. Though Prof Wanjala shies away from comparing Mochama with Zimbabwe’s Dambudzo Marechera, I would be more incline to compared Mochama, aka Smitta with Dambuzo. Read on…

Dear Juba, Taban may be in Juba and getting entangled in administrative chores.But he left a genre of writing which ver few younger authors are exploiting.I dont like Tony Smitta Mochoma’s guts very much,but I secretly admire the way he enjoys an irreverence and iconoclasm which are decidedly Tabanic. You and I hated Taban because of his tendency to draw attention to himself in Meditations in Limbo and The Last Word. I see this streak in young and naughty Smitta.Taban is also good at dropping names: of politicians,the women he has courted and slept with, the coffee bars and entertainment places he has patronized, and media personalities he admires.I dont want to talk about Dambudzo Marechera at this juncture. Taban engulfs himself in controversies and self-deprecation.So does Smitta Mochama .Is Tony Smitta Mochama Taban’s literary son?

Categories
Events Issues News Personalities Reviews

Letter from Washington: The debate continues…

I decided to retrieve the following comment from the comments section, which is in response to the on going debate on Harare North. I felt that it the merits a post on its own. The author is Prof Maurice Amutabi, who teaches History at Central Washington University in the US. Share your thoughts on the comments section below.

Ngunjiri.

I recently came across a debate on Brian Chikwava’s debut novel Harare North sent to me by Joseph Ngunjiri. The issue at hand was that Brian Chikwava is Zimbabwean and his novel on Zimbabwe had been reviewed by a Kenyan. The quarrel seemed to be that a Kenyan cannot review a novel by a Zimbabwean, objectively. The reviewer Joseph Ngunjiri received a lot of flak and direct negative epithets from some Zimbabweans on the fact that as an outsider, he could review a novel by a Zimbabwean. The debate went even further to suggest that Joseph Ngunjiri’s hatred of Robert Mugabe accounted for his biased review of Brian Chikwava’s novel. Of course, I personally do not like or support Robert Mugabe’s autocratic policies, benign or malignant, but I have reviewed books on Zimbabwe and he has never come between. You cannot force people who do not like Mugabe. Zimbabwe is not a preserve for Zimbabwean scholars only. Jester Phiri and other Zimbabweans are wrong to condemn Ngunjiri for reviewing a novel on Zimbabwe.

Zimbabweans have been crying foul in Botswana and South Africa, for being called ‘foreigners’ or makwerekwere. In fact the concept of Bakwere or Makwerekwere is so disturbing that it is a form of apartheid by black South Africans and Batswana against non South African or non Batswana blacks and I find it utterly disturbing. Makwerekwere was originally used to describe non Tswana speakers, but now applies to Zimbabweans, Nigerians and Kenyans, and other Africans who have arrived in Southern Africa in large numbers in the recent past. I condemn the pigeonholing of Zimbabweans in Southern Africa when they are referred to as Makwerekwere, but find it interesting that Zimbabweans are exhibiting the same xenophobic characteristic which they are condemning. The emergence of hostility among and between Africans is worrying. It is interesting to see the fast rate at which these tags of ‘foreign-ness’ in reference to fellow Africans is increasingly becoming common in discussions in many parts of Africa. in Kenya for example, the hostility against Somali refugees has created negative energy against Kenyan Somali, who are now not differentiated from the ‘wariae’ tag that referred to Somalis on the other side of the border. Today, what used to be called ‘Somali Ndogo’ (small Somali) in many Kenyan towns are forced to endure constant raids by security personnel for illegal immigrants and search for ‘terrorist suspects’. In the past these settlements were regarded as part of Kenya’s urban sprawl, and normal. They were like Kisumu ndogo (little Kisumu) for Luos, Kiambu ndogo (little Kimabu) for Kikuyus, and Keroka ndogo (little Keroka) for Abagusii, and Kakamega ndogo (little Kakamega) for Abaluiyia, Masaku ndogo for the Akamba (founded by second hand Kamba used tire/tyre dealers throughout East Africa), and other ethnicities throughout the country and region.

There is no doubt that there are differences between some African nationalities but when the difference is based on hatred more than unbiased markers of identity, this becomes a point of concern. Why can’t scholars study other countries without being subjected to negative energy? It is quickly appearing as if someone from Kenya cannot study Uganda objectively or vice versa, or that a Tanzanian cannot discuss a Namibian issue or vice versa, impartially. This is negative for scholarship on Africa. It means that very soon, I will be told that I cannot study northern Kenya where the bulk of my research has been conducted on NGOs working among pastoralist, because I am not a pastoralist. This trend is likely to stifle academic freedom and creativity. I recall with nostalgia when in high school in Kenya we read books by writers from across the continent and critiqued them. They allowed us to have a continental perspective. We read Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between, Peter Abraham’s Mine Boy, Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure, Mongo Beti’s The Poor Christ of Bomba, Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino, Cyprian Ekwensi‘s Jagua Nana, among others. These novels did for us what a textbook can never dream of doing.

I am therefore stunned to hear the emergence of ‘space’ and ‘turf’ wars among scholars. Not long ago, I saw the emergence of this wars among scholars in the Diaspora as well. I have been taking students from Central Washington University to Africa and most recently took them to South Africa (Kenya is under State Department advisory and CWU does not allow official travel there by students). I was surprised to receive two clearly hostile messages from two black South African scholars based in the US like myself, criticizing the itinerary of my trips (since rhe syllabus and itinerary was posted online). They were annoyed that I took the students to places they thought were demeaning to the good history of black South Africa. They were unhappy with the fact that I took my students to the Voortrekker Monument Museum, in Pretoria, which celebrates Afrikaner (Boer) history. I have never seen such a biased museum anywhere in the world, and in fact think that Voortrekker Monument is an aberration of the history of South Africa because of some of the lies in the museum. But after visiting the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and the Hector Pieterson memorial in Orlando West, Soweto and the Regina Mundi church in Soweto, all of which celebrate Black resistance, I thought it was fitting for the students to visit the Afrikaner monument as well, in order to have a full perspective of what happened in apartheid South Africa. The students could tell the subtle differences in ways in between the places we visited were presented. The point I am trying to make is that as scholars we should be tolerant of others’ views and allow for multiple interpretations, even those we do not agree with.

Another good example of this increasing intolerance is when a non Nigerian scholar, Dr. Saine travelled to Nigeria for few weeks and had the ‘audacity’ to comment about his visit to that populous (although it has never had an official census acceptable to all since independence, so we do not know if it has 90 million or 120 million people) African nation. Dr. Saine received a lot of negative criticism from Nigerian scholars and others, for simply writing about Nigeria. He was attacked by Qansy Salako, Valentine Ojo, Obododimma Oha and Pius Adesanmi. Ed Amatoritsero wrote, “He [Dr. Saine] is a professor who studies Africa but had never been in Nigeria until May of 2009. Then he did visit Nigeria and lived in VI (Victoria Island) – the Island jewel in the midst of Lagosian rot – according to his travelogue. I was in Nigeria at the same period – in May of 2009. I think we must have visited two different Lagos-es.”

Another scholar Dr. Valentine Ojo, MD wrote,

My take on this outburst then and now, was that this is academic violence of the highest order. This is a form of academic gangsterism that is increasingly becoming entrenched in African scholarship and should be condemned. Those who defended Dr. Saine were not spared. They were called names, bad names. One of them was Dr. Kwabena Akurang-Parry whose crime was to say that the he found the article by Dr. Saine to be insightful. Here below is what Dr. Valentine Ojo wrote:

Then Valentine Ojo launched into Kwabena Akurang-Parry for using the word insightful to describe Dr. Saine’s piece.

What bothered me about the attacks was that the Nigerians were undermining Dr. Saine’s report without presenting to us their own reports. It is not different from the attacks on the Kenyan reviewer Peter Ngunjiri, whose crime is that he reviewed Brian Chikwava’s novel Harare North. What one would have expected is a Zimbabwean scholar to point out to a review of the same novel by a Zimbabwean scholar and show the differences that he would have noted. So far, there is no review of the novel by a Zimbabwean. So, does it mean that the rest of the world should just sit and wait until a Zimbabwean reviews the novel?

Below are some of the extracts from the negative exchange on the review of Brian Chikwava’s novel Harare North by Joseph Ngunjiri:

Jester Phiri in Harare writes
I read Ngunjiri’s review of Chikwava’s debut novel, Harare North (October 14, 2009) with some irritation. It seems to miss the essence of a remarkable novel, pioneering in style and innovative in content.
Is Ngunjiri confusing his obvious distaste for Zimbabwe’s government with a novel that at least tries to deliver the realities of a country in turmoil? Or is he trying to get one up on the Zimbabwean writer? Is it possible for a Kenyan reviewer to fully appreciate what Chikwava has accomplished in telling the ‘Zimbabwean story’?
The Editor responds
To paraphrase a Kenyan novelist Ngunjiri might well say “I write what I like”. Is it not, after all, interesting to have an African perspective on a Zimbabwean novel?
• Saturday, 15 May 2010 09:48 posted by Joseph Ngunjiri
I think Jester Phiri misses the point when he claims that I am trying to get one up on Brian Chikwava. Why would I do that? And who says that I have an “obvious distaste” for the Zimbabwean government, which, he rather testily says I confuse the novel?
Why is Phiri being so defensive – on behalf on the author? His is a case of if you don’t like something, give it a bad name, or worse kill it – does that remind you of Mugabe? – Fact is you cannot divorce Harare North from issues surrounding Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, and the question of exile.
About whether a Kenyan can “fully appreciate” the “Zimbabwean story”, all I can say is we are now living in a globalised world, and oh, Chikwava is now a global citizen

Categories
Issues News Personalities Reviews

Harare North revisited

Hi there,

Yesterday I blogged about Marimba Media, the new Pan African arts journalist platform, which, to all you art lovers, promises to be an exciting forum where you can interact with cutting edge arts reporting from some of the best arts journalists across the continent. While I pointed you to the review I did on Brian Chikwava’s debut novel Harare North. I would also like to draw your attention to what promises to be a lively debate on whether a Kenyan  is qualified to review a book that addresses the Zimbabwean situation. You can follow the debate here, and if you feel like making a contribution, you have to log in first by creating an account.

All the best.