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Tony Mochama’s book that won him big money

Everyone has a story to tell but it depends on who is telling the story and how that story is told. That is what makes the difference between a well told story and an ordinary, even boring story. Now, Tony Mochama, who also goes by the name Smitta, has a way with words and you can be assured that his pen can give even the mundane an interesting sheen, especially when he is not using his ‘Greek’ lexicon.

Omtita

Mochama’s new release is a book titled Meet the Omtitas. Keen readers of Mochama’s writing, after reading this book, will tell you that he is writing about his family, though in a fictionalised format. Omtita is a corruption of the name Ontita; the name he uses on Facebook, after Tony Mochama got appropriated by cyber thugs keen on cashing in on big name recognition.

Meet the Omtitas, told through the eyes of Tommy – presumably Tony – though told in the third person, covers a brief period when the young man, the first born in the Omtita’s household, fresh out of high school, is waiting to join university. The book also captures Tommy’s first day as a fresher – did they have to tell us the meaning of this and other words, when there is a glossary at the end of the book? – and the disaster it turned out to be.

Those who follow Mochama’s escapades in his Scene at column in Standard’s Pulse magazine, know the author is always a sentence away from a disaster; but you need to read his rendering in the book, where you do not have to navigate through endless ‘skis’ suffixes to almost every word, to appreciate what a hilarious writer Mochama is.

By far the most interesting character in the book is the head of the Omtita’s household, Mr Omtita himself. He comes home drunk at four in the morning carrying a bunch of bananas and two chickens from Kisii and orders Nandwa, the houseboy who, in his spare time likes reading novels and chasing after neighbourhood house girls, to cook chicken. Mr Omtita is also given to pinching branded towels from the various hotels he has been to so that people know that “the Omtitas have been to places.”

Everyone who finds their way to the Omtita’s household, including Simba, the mongrel Mr Omtita brought home from the local pub, is treated like a member of the family. Thus, when Simba is knocked down by a speeding motorist, the whole family skips church to give the canine a decent send-off – a burial behind the house – and Mr Omtita sheds real tears.

In spite of his quirkiness Mr Omtita has deep respect for his wife, Mrs Omtita, the family matriarch, who despite being consigned on a wheelchair – following an accident – commands loves and respect from the whole family.

The other ‘family member’ who enjoys prominence of place in Mochama’s book is Angel, who is Tommy’s sister’s (Wendy) best friend and who Tommy has the hots for to Wendy’s eternal embarrassment.

As the book is set in 1990 it is hard not to talk about retired President Moi – whom the author refers to as Omojaa, president of a republic called Kenaya, while the ruling party Kanu becomes Paku. In his drinking sessions Mr Omtita says unpleasant things about Omojaa and Paku, a thing that gets his wife worried. To forestall the likelihood of Special Branch officers coming to arrest her ‘anti-government’ husband Mrs Omtita makes sure a portrait of the president hangs prominently in the living room as a ‘show of loyalty’.

Mochama’s sharp, sometimes dark humour makes the book such an enjoyable read.

Meet the Omtitas won the third prize in the Burt Award for African Literature and which came with a sh430,000 cash award.

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Kwani? and the post-election violence

The Post election violence, it would appear, has inspired a lot of creativity from Kwani? Readers are treated to an unprecedented double edition of the Kwani? Journal, and most of it revolves around the post-election violence.
It has been said that countries that have suffered violent upheavals tend to produce great writers and by extension great stories. Could this be the one event that finally lifts Kenya’s creative writers from the doldrums? Could we see our writers competing on the same pedestal with the exciting southern and West African writers?
Those are some of the questions Kwani? editor Billy Kahora is grappling with in the second edition of Kwani? 5. “Are there even any defining texts for the present or for the future, let alone from the past?” asks Kahora. “I am yet to read a work of which I can say: yes, this is a Nairobi, in all its plastic glory, these are the Nakuru, Kisumu, and Mombasa that I recognise…”
Well, Kahora is speaking from his experience of having been a co-judge of the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Africa. This is a question Kahora should be directing to the Kwani? society. After all, when they happened on the scene about seven years ago, they promised to make a clean break from old generation of writers, earning themselves donor support in the process.
Well, there have been flashes of creativity from the Kwani? fraternity, and that is something to be proud about. Parselelo Kantai story You Wreck Her, was this nominated for this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing. This is Kantai’s second nomination.
This is not forgetting Kwani? founder Binyavanga Wainaina and Vyonne Awuor, both of whom won the Caine Prize in 2002 and 2003 respectively. Maybe we will have to wait for a little longer for books from this quarter.
Back to the latest edition of Kwani? For the better part, the book deals with what happened in January last year, and its aftermath. It for example contains interviews with victims and in some cases perpetrators of the violence.
Ideally, these interviews would make for extremely interesting reading were it not for the fact the interviewers were all given a template of questions to ask. This has the effect of limiting the responses to only the questions asked.
Still, there are some creative non-fiction stories that stand out for their freshness. Samuel Munene writes a piece on the rice wars in Mwea Constituency, juxtaposing it with the 2007 parliamentary campaigns in the constituency.
Millicent Muthoni writes another excellent piece on the Kigumo parliamentary campaigns and elections, although I got the feeling that she was quite close to one of the candidates.
Kalundi Serumaga, is one writer who features prominently in most Kwani? publications, and in this edition, he has an interview with Alfred Mutua, the government spokesman.
While he subjects Mutua to very tough questioning, one can’t help getting the feeling that he has certain issues to grind on Kenya and Kenyans.
This came out quite clearly in a very emotional piece he wrote on the first edition of Kwani? 5. In that story Kalundi pours out his bile on Kenya, based on his early life as a refugee, having fled from the chaos in Uganda.
From his argument in the story, he seems to say that what happened to Kenya during the post-election violence was poetic justice for Kenyans, for having mistreated him and his family when they were refugees in Kenya.
While I sympathise with what happened to him at that time, it is not enough excuse for him to take it out on Kenyans in his writings. In any case no one said that the life of a refugee should be a bed of roses.
Tony Mochama, who recently launched his book, The Road to Eldoret recently, makes a return to Kwani? with his irreverent poem Give War a Chance. The poem is a satirical piece full of dark humour. He takes a look at the different ethnic communities and what role he thinks they played in the 2007 elections and the subsequent violence that met the announcement of the results.
Petina Gappah breathes fresh air into the book with her short story titled An Elegy for Easterly. Petina, who was in Nairobi for the Storymoja Hay Festival, recently launched a collection of short stories under the same name. Petina who practices law in Geneva tells the story of slum demolitions, in Zimbabwe, at the height of Robert Mugabe’s autocratic rule.
An Elegy for Easterly tells the uncertain existence of shantytown dwellers in Harare, and how in spite of impending demolitions, life must go on.
The twin edition of Kwani? 5 records the horrors that took place during Kenya’s violent period, takes a rare peek into the minds of Kenyans during that time, and hopes that we will learn from our foolishness.
Isn’t it insulting that the two politicians we fought and lost lives over are now feasting together, polishing of bottles of champagne while planning to shield perpetrators of the post-election violence from punishment?