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Books News

Nuria is now at Naivas

Good news for Kenyan writers as Nuria Bookstore takes over the distribution of books at Naivas Supermarkets. Abdullahi Bulle, the director of Nuria says the move followed the successful handover ceremony that took place on Monday morning, “where ‘All African Books’ were transferred the Kenyan books to Nuria.”

What this means is that Kenyan writers, who distribute their books through Nuria, have more convenient outlet for their books. The Naivas chain of supermarkets has branches all over the country.

This is a win for Kenyan writing as Nuria has the largest database of Kenyan books, especially those written by self-published writers, who ordinarily would find it difficult stocking their books in other book outlets.

“We appreciate the partnership and support in promoting Kenyan literature and culture,” explained an excited Bulle. “We look forward to serving you with quality and affordable books at Naivas Supermarket outlets.

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Books Fiction Reviews

Revenge and rejection in Dawood’s thriller

Title: Eye of the Storm

Author: Yusuf Dawood

Publisher: East African Educational Publishers

Reviewer: Otieno Opondo

Eye of the Storm is a captivating medical thriller novel authored by Yusuf K. Dawood, a renowned surgeon and columnist, who died in January, 2023. Set in the post-colonial era, the book delves into the themes of revenge and rejection and the devastating psychological impact they have on individuals.

The novel follows the journey of Njoroge Maina, also known as Joe Maina, from his humble beginnings at the foot of Mount Kenya to the peak of his medical career as a respected surgeon. Haunted by past rejection, Dr Maina seeks revenge and uses his surgical prowess to harm his patients, leaving them either dead or scarred for life. However, justice eventually catches up with him, and the ensuing legal drama is both thrilling and shocking.

As a reader who used to avidly follow Dawood’s column, Surgeon’s Diary, I found Eye of the Storm to be nostalgic, taking me back to the days when I eagerly awaited each new edition of Sunday Nation. The book also has strong autobiographical elements, with Dr Joe Maina being a fictionalized representation of Dawood’s childhood, education, and profession.

The plot of the book starts off slowly but gains momentum and keeps the reader hooked throughout. The characters are well-developed, and the themes explored are relevant to all. Dawood has also demystified the medical profession and surgery, making the book readable to both medical professionals and laymen. However, some readers may find the medical terminologies overwhelming.

In comparison to Dawood’s other novel, The Price of Living, which also deals with the theme of rejection, the author uses the same name for the protagonists in both books, Maina Karanja in The Price of Living and Njoroge Maina in Eye of the Storm. Both protagonists also have sons with the same name, Muhoho, which some readers may find lacking in creativity.

Overall, Eye of the Storm is an excellent read for anyone interested in a medical thriller novel. Dawood seamlessly blends medical terminology with regular English, making the book appealing to all. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how suppressed emotions can have severe consequences.

I highly recommend it, and I give it four stars.

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Books Featured Fiction Reviews

Kombani impresses in his latest offering

Title: Hawkers-Pokers

Author: Kinyanjui Kombani

Publisher: Longhorn

Reviewer: Mbugua Ngunjiri

Kinyanjui Kombani is back, this time with a thriller, whose twists and turns will keep the reader glued to the book’s pages till the very end.

The story is told through the eyes of Rocky Ada (Rada), hawker, who is the eyes (riitho) of fellow hawkers going about their business in the streets of Nairobi. To understand why a riitho is an important person in the hawkers’ universe, one only needs to reflect on the cat and mouse, often street battles between hawkers and City Inspectorate Enforcement Officers (Kanjo askaris), which can and routinely turns fatal.

Now, it is the duty of Rada and two other sentries to be on the lookout and warn fellow hawkers of any impending raid by the deadly Kanjo.

One day, while playing his usual cat and mouse games with Kanjo, Rada rescues a man he finds unconscious in a storm drain. Turns out that this man, Mike Thumbi, son of one the richest men in Nairobi, had a near-fatal encounter with the infamous mchele (drugging) babes.

Out of the goodness of his heart, Rada borrows a mkokoteni and takes the indisposed Mike to his shack in nearby Ngara, a decision he regrets later, but also has the potential of changing his fortunes.

Meanwhile, Mike is reported missing and suspected to have been kidnapped. One thing leads to another and a contingent of crack unit personnel drawn from the country’s elite forces ‘rescues’ Mike, while Rada is taken into police custody.

When it becomes clear the charge of kidnap cannot hold in a court of law, Rada is released on bond. Mike feels remorseful seeing the kind of tribulations, including torture, his rescuer has undergone in the hands of cruel police interrogators. He pays Rada’s bond.

They soon part ways after Rada refuses Mike’s offer for further assistance. However, their fate appears intertwined as they soon find themselves together again, when Rada comes to and finds himself under the care of Mike, in their home.

After proving himself useful to the Thumbi family, a plan is hatched for Rada’s slum-dwelling parents to get introduced to the Thumbi’s. Drama awaits as it is through this meeting that long-forgotten history comes back to haunt the two families, when it emerges that Rada and not Mike is the billionaire’s real son and that the two were swapped at birth.

These revelations come in the form of action-packed flashbacks; explosive revelations that threaten to tear apart, the image Thumbi had carefully cultivated for himself all those years. His multi-billion business empire risks going down the drain, as sordid details of his dark past come back to haunt him.

You only need to read the book to get details for yourself. Here, Kombani, one of Kenya’s most prolific writers has surely outdone himself. This, in our view, is vintage Kombani, who announced himself to the literary landscape with his magnum opus, The Last Villains of Molo. Clearly, he has matured and gotten better with time.

One small issue though; the author failes to tie up a few loose ends in his plot, particularly the bit where Rada is arrested and taken to court. How is it that police interrogators neglected to tell him what he was arrested for? Again, since most of the book is narrated from Rada’s point of view, he conveniently omits the part where he was arrested from his house, where he had rescued/harboured Mike.

It thus gets confusing for the reader, when Rada, in court, claims no knowledge of Mike, in view of his association with him at the storm drain and subsequent housing him at his Ngara shack, from where they were smoked out by police.

This can only be down to authorial oversight, which would have been cured through keen editorial intervention.  

That oversight though doesn’t dampen the fire in Hawkers-Pokers, for it addresses issues that affect our daily lives, like child theft and child swapping in our maternity hospitals. Something about the book’s ending cries for a sequel.     

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Arts Awards Culture Events Fiction News Personalities Poetry

Cynthia Abdallah wins 2022 Itanile Award

Kenya’s Cynthia Abdallah is among the winners of the 2022 Itanile Awards. The Awards, administered by Itanile Magazine, rewards the effort and commitment of literary creatives for advancing the African experience, through storytelling.

“We select winners of the award from works we publish from January to December every year,” says Itanile. “Our guest editor selected winners based on strength, quality, and the impact of their works on the Itanile community. The winners in each category received $200 each.”

Ms Abdallah won in the Chapbook category, for her poetry collection, Author’s Feet.

In the Fiction category, the winners were Chioma Mildred Okonkwo for Time is Different Over Here and Enit’ayanfe Ayosojumi Akinsanya for A Rehearsal of Shame. In the Poetry category, the winners were Onyedikachi Shaquille Johnson for May the Thirtieth and Olabisi Akinwale At the Twilight of Your Sojourner.

Itanile is a literary brand that provides a platform for African writers to publish stories they want to tell about the African experience.

The awarded works, selected by guest editors, will be chosen based on strength, quality, and impact on the Itanile community. All works published by Itanile throughout the year – up till October – will be considered for the awards.

Ms Abdallah is a multi-talented artist. She is not only a writer; she is also a filmmaker. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks, My Six Little Fears and The Author’s Feet. She has also authored a collection of short stories: The Musunzu Tree and Other Stories.

Two of her documentaries, Tales from the Pandemic and Inyumba Yu Mulogooli, were nominated for the Kalasha 2022 Awards. 

She is also the producer of The Author’s Feet, a show available on YouTube. 

Ms Abdallah, 36, is based in Caracas Venezuela, where she teaches English and Literature. 

Categories
Fiction Reviews Short story

The flower that withered too soon

Title: Chained

Author: Scholastica Moraa

Reviewer: Mbugua Ngunjiri

Chained is the haunting tale of 22-year-old Danielle, alone, bleeding in the bathroom, staring at imminent death after having procured an abortion. Her thoughts are in a state of turmoil as she reflects on the events that led to the present moment.

She is full of regrets but it is too late now.

The story is story is told via flashback. Danielle’s father has just secured her an internship position at an auctioneer’s firm, in a remote outpost. At first she finds the job boring but then things start brightening somewhat after she meets and falls in love with a man, working at a law firm.

The girl wrestles with feelings of guilt, but then, with each sweetener she receives from her lover, she discards her inhibitions and justifies the illicit affair.  Sample this: “I turned from preaching ‘monogamy is the true love’ to ‘the y in your man is silent’.”

Even amidst the justifications, the man’s wedding ring serves as an ‘unwelcome’ reminder of what she is getting herself into. Though she tries resisting the man’s advances, her defences are weak and she quickly succumbs to his slick moves; gifts and all.

Like a knife through butter, her feeble attempts at resisting the sexual overtures from the man are easily swept aside, when he sweetens the deal with offers of employment.

After she loses her virginity to the man, Danielle naively hopes that her guardian angel will shield her from getting pregnant. Shortly thereafter, she he finds out, to her horror, that she is indeed carrying the man’s baby.

This leads her to a backstreet clinic to procure the services of an abortionist. She does not have enough cash to pay for the ‘service’, so the man ‘offers’ to offset the balance if only she agrees to have sex with him.

The operation goes horribly wrong and now the girl stares death in eye.

The issue of illegally procured abortions has been with us for the longest time. So too are the deaths that follow. So widespread are these incidents that society has reduced the victims to mere statistics; it is not news anymore. However, in this story, Scholastica Moraa humanises the subject through her tragic character Danielle.

Chained painfully brings home the fact that victims of this vice are living, breathing people, with needs and desires, just like we do; only that they made a wrong choice at some point in life. They are daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters, etc. They could be your relative.

The story is also an indictment of predatorial men; particularly married men, who prey on naïve girls, ruining their futures, even destroying their lives, like in Danielle’s case. Many men in such instances get away scot-free, probably to go and ruin the life of yet another girl.

The man, in this story, remains unnamed, probably the author’s way of highlighting the anonymity of such men; and just how easy it is for them to escape unpunished.

Moraa’s searing prose brings to the fore the debate about abortion, which the Kenyan society would rather it remains buried under the carpet, while girls like Danielle, continue losing their lives in the process of trying to procure illegal abortions. Those who survive are left permanently scarred, others unable to bear children.

A few days ago, a quack medic going by the name Mugo wa Wairimu was convicted in a case where he had been caught on camera sexually assaulting patients at one of his clinics. It is also a well-documented fact that wa Wairimu, among other things, offered abortion services to desperate Nairobi women.

Going by Danielle’s example where she had to offer her body, as part payment for the abortion, it is not too difficult to imagine this was normal fare at wa Wairimu’s clinics.

Moraa’s story is a powerful reminder to the society that women’s reproductive health is a topic that needs to be addressed with utmost urgency. Abortion is a touchy subject worldwide. Here in Kenya, it remains illegal except in certain mitigating circumstances. In the US, the Republican dominated Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade, a landmark decision which ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion.

The reversal of Roe v Wade has had some ramifications in the US, the latest being the poor performance for Republicans in the just concluded midterm elections, where the much anticipated ‘Red Wave’ failed to materialise.

Chained stands out in expert use of language. The author has a way with words; every word has meaning. An example will suffice: “… It all came down to a spoilt love story and I was the villain. It was my love story but I was a minor character…”

Moraa’s ease with words can be attributed to the fact that she is a poet. Now poetry, according to Rita Dove, an American poet, is ‘language at it most distilled and most powerful’.

Chained won the 2022 Kendeka Prize for African Literature.

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Books Culture Featured Personalities publishing

Prof Kithaka wa Mberia has occupied the same office for 41 years

Five little known facts about Prof Kithaka wa Mberia.

1. He teaches Linguistics at the University of Nairobi and not Kiswahili, as widely believed by many. One of the many Vice-Chancellors he has served under, at UoN, long held the belief that Prof Mberia taught Kiswahili.

2. His book Kwenzi Gizani, which won the Jomo Kenyatta prize for Literature, last month (September 2022), was the first book he was submitting to be considered for a literary award.

3. He has self-published all his books, including Kifo Kisimani, which was a set book between 2005 and 2012.

4. He has occupied the same office, at the University of Nairobi for 41 years.

5. He writes in Kiswahili as a matter of principle. “I would be read more widely if I decided to write in English,” he says. “That is a price I am willing to pay.”

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Books Fiction publishing Reviews

Magical tale wins children’s award

Title: Chadi’s Trip

Author: Sarah Haluwa

Publisher: Storymoja

Reviewer: Mbugua Ngunjiri

The village of Kalole is faced with a deadly plague; Shaka Risha. Anyone who contracts it, most likely ends up dead. The whole village is worried; there is no knowing who will catch the deadly ailment next.
The village oracle announces that the cure can only be found in the forest, where spirits live. The bravest warriors, led by chief’s son, are dispatched to the forest to get the antidote, but they fail to return.
Another group is sent to the forest and they, too, fail to return. The very thought of venturing into the forest petrifies everyone in the village, yet the plague is still claiming its deadly toll.
When no one else is willing to go for the cure, little Chadi volunteers to go to the dreaded forest.
Will she make it where even the brave warriors failed?
You can only get the answer by reading Chadi’s Trip, a children’s book written by Sarah Haluwa and published by Storymoja.


This book won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in the children’s category. The award is organised by the Kenya Publishers Association.
Find out the unique qualities that set Chadi apart from other children and which make her suitable for the dangerous mission in the forest, where she will come up against unpredictable spirits.
Chadi’s Trip employs magical realism as a literary technique to fire up the imagination of young readers. The fact that it is a young girl engaging the spirits to a point of outmaneuvering them, makes it all the more attractive to the intended audience. Children love heroism.
It should be noted that the story is based in Kenya’s coastal region, where young girls are faced with heavy odds. These range from debilitating poverty, teen pregnancies not forgetting the less talked about teenage prostitution that feeds the underground sex tourism market.
It is therefore safe to argue that these girls lack role models. Haluwa’s book serves as a welcome inspiration to such girls, seeing as lead character is a young girl, a positive role model, beats odds and is eventually celebrated by a whole village.
Writing for children is no walk in the park, thus the author, known to pen adult stuff online, should be commended for successfully making that all-important transition.

Maisha Yetu feels that this book deserves the accolade it got

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Arts Books Events Issues News Personalities publishing Reviews

Three needless murders and a writer’s vengeance

History has a funny way of repeating itself, especially if we do not learn from it.

In 1980, Frank Sundstrom, an American marine landed at the Kenyan coast, where he met Monicah Njeri. Njeri was what you would call a sex worker, yaani alikuwa anatafutia watoto.

One thing led to another; the two had sex, as would have been expected in such a transaction. Much later, while having drinks, Sundstrom, who claimed to have been unhappy with the ‘services’ offered, beat up Njeri, killing her in the process.

He smashed a bottle on Njeri’s head and used the broken bottle to stab her to death. He later made away with Njeri’s money.

32 years later, Agnes Wanjiru, like Njeri, met a British soldier in Nanyuki. The same thing happened and the soldier, who is yet to be identified, murdered Wanjiru and threw her body in a septic tank. Like Njeri, Wanjiru was also stabbed to death.

While Sundstrom was arrested and subjected to ‘trial’, the British soldier literally got away with murder, until about two weeks ago, when a fellow soldier decided to go public with what he knew. Britain’s Ministry of Defence thought they had successfully covered up the murder, until now.

Following an inquest in 2019, judge Njeri Thuku concluded that Wanjiru had been murdered by one or two British soldiers. The whistleblowing soldier told UK’s Sunday Times that the killer had confessed to him and he reported it but the army failed to investigate.

As for Njeri, the murder trial was presided over by a 74-year-old British expatriate judge, who released Sundstrom on a 70 dollar, two-year ‘good behaviour’ bond.

This is what the Washington Post wrote about the case then: “The verdict has brought an outcry for judicial reform from Kenyans, who point out that Sundstrom was tried by a white British judge. The white prosecutor, also British, “instead assumed the role of the defense counsel,” the daily East African Standard of Nairobi charged.”

They say why hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge.

Enter Peter Kimani. In 2002, 22 years after Njeri’s murder, Kimani, then a journalist with the East African Standard, wrote his first novel, Before the Rooster Crows.

In the book, Mumbi, whose father had turned her into a wife, runs away from her village in Gichagi, to the city (Gichuka), in search of better life. To survive in the city, Mumbi turns into a flesh peddler.

Much later, she is joined by Muriuki, her village sweetheart.

Mumbi is willing to leave her old profession so the two can settle down as man and wife, but then a news item in the papers catches her attention. A ship full of American marines docks at the coast (Pwani). Mumbi convinces Muriuki to accompany her to the coast, for ‘one final job’, before finally hanging her, er, petticoat.

At the coast, Mumbi alijishindia a soldier named Desertstorm. After sex Desertstorm claims that he got a raw deal and demands his money back. A fight ensues and the marine stabs poor Mumbi with a broken bottle, a number of times, until she dies. He steals Mumbi’s money after killing her.

Muriuki happens to witness the entire episode through a keyhole, from an adjoining door, too cowardly to intervene.

Desertstorm is hauled before a British judge, who despite the overwhelming testimony against the suspect, sets him free ‘on condition that he signs a bond in the sum sh500 to be of good behaviour for a period of two years’.

Remember, Mumbi’s unlike Njeri and Wanjiru’s case, is fictional and Kimani, the author controls the narrative. Before the Rooster Crows is a historical novel and the author is out to right a historical injustice committed in 1980.

How does he do it? Stay with me…

Following the injustice occasioned on his girlfriend, through the courts, Muriuki tracks down Mumbi’s killer and strangles him to death.

Cue another trial, this time with Muriuki on the dock. Meanwhile, there is huge outcry and judge – the same one who freed Desertstorm – recuses himself from the case. It becomes clear that justice might finally be done, or would it?

In the intervening period, a bill is brought before parliament to the effect that the president can intervene in an ongoing case and deliver judgement. That is precisely what was done and Muriuki was sentenced to death.

This was obviously a case of foreign interference, just like in Njeri’s case, to arrive at crooked justice.

However, in the realm of fiction, the author has is in charge and that is how he ensured that Mumbi gets some justice, no matter how rough.

Now, since we did not learn from the 1980 murder, that is why history had to repeat itself with the Nanyuki murder.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in good writing. I wonder why the fellows at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) have to engage in the charade of looking for setbooks, when such a gem gathers dust on bookshelves.

Kimani’s publishers, EAEP, should tell readers if the book is still in circulation.

Kimani is also the author of Dance of the Jakaranda, another historical novel, which is doing well internationally.

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Arts Books Culture Personalities publishing Uncategorized

Chakava, the father of African publishing

Henry Chakava, has been referred to as the father of African publishing for good reason.

He would have easily made a career in the academy but he chose publishing instead. In 1972, he joined the then Heinemann Educational Publishers as an editor. In a span of six years, he had risen to the position of managing director.

In the early nineties he bought the company from its UK owners and named it East African Educational Publishers. However, the most enduring part of his story is how he led his company to publish more than 2,000 tiles of culturally relevant books – which include fiction – the largest by a local publishing house.

He managed this by balancing between publishing school publishing – the bread and butter of local publishing – and publishing for leisure/fiction.

Despite the fact that his employers, Heinemann, were the publishers of the successful African Writers Series, he kept receiving manuscripts which he felt would fit into a new genre of adventure, romance and crime.

He floated the idea to his bosses in the UK but they flatly rejected the idea. He would not take no for an answer and went ahead to start the Spear Series, which became so successful, that Heinemann had to start a series of their own called Heartbeat.

Chakava received the manuscript of My Life in Crime from Kamiti Maximum Prison, where the author, John Kiriamiti, had been imprisoned for robbery with violence. To date, My Life in Crime remains Kenya’s best-selling novel.

It should be remembered that Chakava is also Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s publisher. For Chakava, publishing Ngugi was a challenge, a risk and reward.  Challenge in the sense that as a committed writer, he expects the publisher to share his vision. And for that he has given Chakava all the due respect.

Another challenge had to do with distribution of his works following Heinemann’s take over by East African Educational Publishers. Without the network of distributing the works abroad, Chakava had the daunting task of distributing them.

The risk came from the fact that Ngugi, in the 70s, was deemed as anti-government, controversial and a rebel. And that came with a stigma. And isolation. And the reward came because Ngugi’s books were intellectually and commercially rewarding as a recognised name.  

When, in 1980 word spread that Chakava was about to publish Ngugi’s book, Caitani Mutharabaini, (Devil on the Cross) written in detention, he started receiving threatening phone calls. When the aggrieved parties – suspected to be government agents – saw that he was unrelenting, they decided to move their dastardly action to the next level; assassination. Chakava was waylaid as he was about to enter his Lavington home, by thugs armed with all manner of crude weapons. He was only saved by headlights of an oncoming vehicle. The thugs dispersed but not before a machete, aimed at his head, almost severed his small finger.

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Books Culture Personalities publishing Releases Reviews

Nyanchwani’s tough love Memos to men

Title: 50 Memos to Men

Author: Silas Nyanchwani

Publisher: Gram Books

Price: sh1250

Reviewer: Mbugua Ngunjiri

Growing up in the village, you would occasionally overhear grown-ups say things like: “Huyu mtoto ni mwerevu kuliko miaka yake.” This was often in reference to youngsters perceived to be intelligent beyond their years.

Now that I am a certified elder, the above notion crosses my mind every time I read a post – mostly on Facebook – authored by Silas Nyanchwani. That is why whenever he makes an announcement to the effect that he has a book out, I want read what he has written.

His first offering Sexorcised, had some sections that left me blushing. While I can’t remember the last time I read a novel in the erotica genre, Nyanchwani proved that we have some hidden talent amongst us, wah!

But I digress.

I am here to talk, or rather, to write about 50 Memos to Men – his latest book – and I have been wondering to myself, where does the author get wisdom to talk about relationships so authoritatively? Isn’t this a case of mtoto kuwa mwerevu kuliko miaka yake?

Anyone who doesn’t know Nyanchwani, getting the chance to read Memos, would most likely assume that this the product of a greying man, with grey, bushy eyebrows, given to wearing frumpy sweaters, peering above horn-rimmed spectacles, balanced on the bridge of their nose.

First of all, how long has Nyanchwani been in the marriage institution, if at all he is married, for him to be dispensing such wisdom? Just the other day, Nyanchwani and I worked at The Nairobian, when the tabloid was flying off newsstands. Then, he was writing a column, whose content always rubbed the female gender the wrong way. Such was the controversy.

So where did he learn these things?

Then and now, I always marvelled at how, this quiet, soft-spoken young man courts controversy so effortlessly, like the time he attacked Mukimo – one of my favourite dishes – so badly, I think I trolled him on Facebook. Awachane na Mukimo kabisa.

Again I digress.

After I finished reading Memos, I got away with the feeling that this can only be the product of careful observation of human behaviour. Everything he writes resonates deeply and ticks all the right boxes. We all have our fair share of relationships, hence reading the book is like walking into a room full of familiar faces. Whatever is written here, resonates so deeply at a personal level.

Talking about familiarity, well familiar faces come with different memories, not all of them good. Some can be downright traumatic like when one suffers a painful heartbreak (character development?) So, what is the advice for men who have suffered break-ups? “…once she tells you it is over, bro, don’t ever beg…nothing you will ever do will win her back,” says the book, adding. “When a woman breaks up with you, 99 per cent of the time, she has a backup plan.” Savage.

One thing I enjoy about Nyanchwani’s writing is that he gives it to you straight, like bitter, but effective medicine. Call it tough love, but Memos is not about babysitting grown men, who think the world waits for them to make up their minds. The kind of advice dispensed in this book is a bit like the child that rans to its father, eyes bawled up, from an altercation in the playground, only for the parent to give them a proper hiding; to man them up. Hakuna kubembeleza.

Nyanchwani has this unique ability to bring out, on paper, the things you only think about in the deep recesses of the mind; making it look so easy, yet packing them with so much sense. That, to me, is the sign of a good writer.

It is rather obvious why most women get exasperated by his writing; he almost always gives men ‘bad’ advice. Listen to this “…unless she is your mother or sister, don’t even give a woman money…my stingiest friends get laid more, or even get paid for their cabling services…trust me, men who treat women better hardly get anything good in return.” Hmm…

Isn’t it funny how he pummels women’s sensibilities, yet they keep coming for more. Well, that is what eloquent, persuasive writing does for you.

Still, his is not the blind, see-no-evil hear-no-evil, embrace of men. He calls them out when they do stupid things that hurt good women. Such men are afforded the worst contempt in the book. As a man, you do not want to be caught on the wrong side of his pen.

I have seen a number of social media personalities crown themselves the title ‘Men’s President’, but most are trash talking, bottom feeding online busybodies with nary in the way of brains. To me, Nyanchwani, with his smooth cerebral writing is more deserving of that title.

When I opened the book’s cover, I feared it would come out as the glue that did the binding appeared to have spilled over, however, after handling it for a number of times, the gluing seems to be just fine. And yes, I like the cover design; very creative.

Now, apart from a few typos here and there, which can be smoothened by a good editor, this is a book I highly recommend. I learnt a lot.

About being the tallest writer in Africa – I am short, so this cuts to the quick – I wonder, whom between Nyanchwani and Clifford Oluoch is shorter.