Kwani Trust

• Storymania - May 4, at Das

  Posted: April 30, 2008, 3:19 pm by Kwani

  Do you remember that time when… You… err… you know? Pale paled for the
  first time?
  The time when you made a decision on a subject our parents evade, our
  teachers ignore and our peers claim to know all about.

  The time you decided, if, when and with whom.
  This is the one thing that one can’t do alone. Okay, I’ve heard that,
  sometimes in extremely difficult circumstances you can, but then that’s a
  whole different story…

  Sex is the closest experience of heaven mankind have, its a very
  pleasurable act that routinely serves for procreation, as a bargaining line
  and blackmail tool and also a weapon of mass discussion.

  Long ago our old fashioned elders designed a deliberate and clear system
  of initiating us to the important first sexual experience, but of course we
  ditched it.

  So what have we replaced it with?

  How was your first sexual experience - was it painstakingly planned in an
  exotic place, candle light dinner and intimate foreplay? Was it like mine,
  a kissing session gone haywire and you were shocked to realize you did it
  without your own consent?

  Who was it you honoured, do you still remember their names? Ok you are
  nice, you married them, but for those of us who aren’t sooooo nice it was
  probably in a dingy estate corner playing cha kimama.

  Kindly permit me to say this, we all love sex, we are all products of
  sex, in fact seeing a person is also (by wild extension) seeing two people in
  the act!

  Who will tell our stories?

  On the 4th May 2008 from 2pm till 5.30pm at the Das restaurant in
  Westlands, Nairobi. Das is on woodvale groove opposite Bandari Plaza and near
  Crooked Q in westlands.
  A forum has been designed especially for you to share without fear, or
  inhibitions, the place to tell it like it is. It’s a celebration of
  Kenyans stories, our stories. It’s going to be wild, untamed.

  After an explosive story telling session led by Nairobi storyteller of
  the year 2007, Valentine Njoroge will question Dayo Forster on her story,
  READING THE CEILING that talks about a young Woman’s first sex experience
  and four different ramifications of that decision. Afterwards there will be
  an open mic session for all of us to take part in and share.

  Register now for the open mic!

  Entry is 100/=

  Spread the word like bush fire, coz this will be your hottest
  storytelling experience yet.

  Buy your tickets now! Confirm attendance

  Please for any queries do not hesitate to contact Millie on
  0720 722 991 OR
  millie@storymojaafrica.co.ke or atienodok@yahoo.com

  Regards,

  Millie Dok
  Events Coordinator,
  Storymoja Africa.

• Author’s Seminar: ‘Word From Africa’

  Posted: April 30, 2008, 3:14 am by Kwani

  Do you have what it takes to be a published author?

  Ellah Allfrey is senior editor at Jonathan Cape, one of Britain’s foremost literary imprints in one of the largest publishing houses, Random House, and David Godwin, one of Britain’s top literary agents, whose clients include prize-winning African authors. They’ll tell you what is going on in African literature today and offer tips and advice on how to get your manuscripts to them.
  At The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1, Saturday ton 31 May, 18.45-19.45pm
  Places are limited, so if you are interested in attending this seminar, please submit the following 3 items by 15 May.
  1. Short biographical information. Maximum 100 words
  2. Synopsis of manuscript you are working on (fiction or memoir only. No poetry or non-fiction)
  3. Excerpt from manuscript. 1000 words.
  (Please submit your synopsis and ms in Times or Times New Roman font, double spaced, numbered pages, name on each page.)
  If you are successful, you will be informed by Tuesday 27 May. Please send to info@sablelitmag.org. You will receive an email acknowledgment that your application for attendance has been received.
  This seminar is part of the Word from Africa season, presented by Africa Beyond in collaboration with Sable LitMag.

  Ellah Wakatama Allfrey is senior editor at Jonathan Cape. Her authors include Segun Afolabi, Biyi Bandele and Dinaw Mengestu.

  David Godwin started his publishing career with Routledge in 1973 as their Editorial Director. He moved on after ten years, to become the Editorial Director at William Heinemann from, then became Managing director at Secker and Warburg, and Managing Director at Jonathan Cape before becoming a literary agent. He started at Gillon Aitken Associates in 1993, and left there a year later to start his own company, David Godwin Associates in 1994. They represent about 130 clients including many prize winners such as Arundhati Roy. They also represent African and Caribbean authors including, Helon Habila, Aminatta Forna, Nii Ayikwei Parkes and Jacob Ross.

  For details of the Word from Africa programme on 31 May visit
  www.myspace.com/sablelitmag
  or
  www.africabeyond.org

• “AFRICALLS” - Multimedia Coming to a Laptop Near You

  Posted: April 29, 2008, 12:16 pm by Kwani

  AFRICALLS? is a documentary film, a book, and an exhibition that shows the work of five artists and two production centers of contemporary art in seven African cities. It shows their interests and the urban context from which they create their works. AFRICALLS? explores the key aspects of these artists’ personalities and creative processes, going beyond the art object they make in Dakar, Douala, Cape Town, Rabat, Luanda, Nairobi and Maputo. AFRICALLS is an audiovisual journey to today’s art of an urban Africa: cosmopolitan and unknown, contemporary and global.

• Congratulations Martin Kimani!

  Posted: April 29, 2008, 11:58 am by Kwani

  Kwani? is proud to announce that one of our writers, Martin Kimani, has been selected for the African Leadership Initiative fellowship. This is a cross-disciplinary initiative that brings together the best and brightest young leaders from across the continent to promote their own work and encourage the diffusion of their ideas across professional boundaries.
  Way to go Martin.

  For more information, visit:
  http://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWJeMRKpH/b.612147/
  and
  [www.nationmedia.com]

• Binyavanga Wainaina Hits North America’s Litfest Scene

  Posted: April 29, 2008, 11:31 am by Kwani

  Having just shared the stage with Chinua Achebe for a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Things Fall Apart at New York’s Bard College, Kwani? founding editor Binyavanga Wainaina is set to represent Kenya at two more prestigious literary festivals.
  On Wednesday, April 30, Wainaina will be speaking at the PEN ‘World Voices’ Festival of International Literature in New York City. This preeminent festival describes itself as “an attempt to enrich and sustain global dialogue,” and involves some of the world’s best writers from several countries.
  Next, on Sunday, April 4, Wainaina will lead a discussion on African writing at Quebec’s Blue Metropolis litfest, “the world’s first multi-lingual literary festival,” where this year’s theme is travel writing.
  And on September 17, after coming home to preside over Kwani’s own litfest during the first two weeks of August, Wainaina will be delivering the keynote address at the University of Toronto’s “Things Fall Apart at 50″ conference.

• Call for Submissions

  Posted: April 28, 2008, 6:38 pm by Kwani

  Wasafiri is preparing Issue 60: Literature For Children And Young Adults edited by Beverley Naidoo and Shereen Pandit.
  Writers who are interested in contributing, please send unpublished short stories and poems to wasafiri@open.ac.uk before 31 July 2008.

• Call For Papers

  Posted: April 28, 2008, 6:29 pm by Kwani

  Things Fall Apart & the Next Half-Century of African Literature (A 50th Anniversary Conference)

  5 September 2008, University of Nottingham, UK

  Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is the biggest selling African novel, having been translated into more than 50 languages. Its publication in 1958 was the epochal event in African literature, leading to a transformation in the literary landscape. On the fiftieth anniversary of its publication, it is appropriate to appraise the impact and heritage of the book, as well as the direction of African Literature in the next half-century.

  We invite proposals for panels and papers exploring this theme. We encourage papers exploring the universal reach of the book, its study and reception across cultural and disciplinary borders, its connection to current literary productions and its potential impact on future writings. African Writing magazine will publish selected proceedings from the conference.

  Titles and 250-word abstracts of proposed 20 minute papers should be sent (with a one-paragraph bio) not later than 30 May 2008 to the following:

  Dr. M. M. Daly
  Associate Professor
  Department of Cultural Studies
  University of Nottingham
  University Park
  Nottingham
  United Kingdom
  NG7 2RD
  macdonald.daly@nottingham.ac.uk

• Reading Stages Workshop

  Posted: April 22, 2008, 12:15 pm by Kwani

  Goethe-Institut, in association with Kwani Trust, will run a two-day workshop
  intended to provide young creative writers and writing enthusiasts
  interested in establishing and running reading stages in Nairobi and around
  the country with the tools to do so. The workshop will be held on June 5th
  – 6th and will culminate in a free public performance on June 7th.

  To participate in this workshop, please submit 1) a letter of interest and
  2) up to 3 poems or 1000 words of prose to workshop@kwani.org. You may
  alternatively post your application to P.O. Box 2895, 00100 Nairobi for
  review. Selection for participation in the workshop will be based on the
  quality of the work submitted and the applicant’s communicated interest in
  or efforts made to propagate new literary forums and communities in Nairobi
  and around the country. We ask that applicants discuss what their vision is
  for a new forum and articulate the reasoning for bringing one to
  their chosen community. While we expect that many applicants will
  themselves be writers, we equally invite literary enthusiasts to apply.

  The deadline for submissions is May 7, 2008. Entries sent after this date
  will not be accepted. Selected participants will be contacted by May 14,
  2008. Questions and concerns may also be directed to the above addresses.

  We look forward to hearing from you!

• KENYA BURNING - Photo Exhibit at the GoDown Arts Center

  Posted: April 16, 2008, 12:35 am by Kwani

  A photographic exhibition of the Kenya elections 2007 and post-elections 2008

  During the Kenya Elections 2007 and after, amateur and
  professional photographers alike captured powerful scenes of
  the campaigning, voting and ensuing violence and destruction.
  The exhibition tells this story through over 100 compelling
  images, presenting an opportunity for us all to remember and
  reflect.

  Exhibition opens 19th April, 2pm.
  Venue – The GoDown Arts Centre,
  Dunga Road, near Car&General.
  Runs Monday to Friday 9am-5pm
  and Saturdays 10am-4pm.
  Closes 10th May, 2008.

  Photography by:

  Yasuyoshi Chiba
  Allan Gichigi
  Georgina Goodwin
  Anne Holmes
  Maina Kariuki
  Charles Kimani
  Arno Kopecky
  Thomas Mukoya
  Boniface Mwangi
  Tom Otieno

• Sunday Salon - April 20

  Posted: April 16, 2008, 10:55 pm by Kwani

  A Prose Reading Series Featuring:

  MILLICENT MUTHONI

  NEEMA NGWATILO MAWIYOO

  ARNO KOPECKY

  KINGWA KAMENCU

  Four readers, four unique voices

  In a tranquil outdoor setting

  7-9pm, Sunday 20th April

  Kengeles, Lavington Green

  Entry Only KSh. 300

  About the Writers:

  Millicent Muthoni is a trained architect turned journalist in real estate and a columnist with the Standard. Her short story was published in the Caine Prize anthology, Jambula Tree and other Stories, 2007

  Arno Kopecky is a freelance journalist and travel writer from Vancouver, Canada. Currently based in Nairobi, he is an editor at Kwani?.

  Kingwa Kamencu is a journalist writing for the Media Institute’s magazine- Expression Today (ET) and a contributor with ‘The Standard’ newspaper. He first book, To Grasp at A Star was published by East African Education publishers and has since won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for fiction in 2007

  Neema Ngwatilo Mawiyoo grew up singing in church in Nairobi, Kenya, but it was while at university that Ngwatilo’s relationship with music took a definitive turn. She embarked on a quest for self that took her to Johannesburg, South Africa to study the role of Kwaito music in shaping post-apartheid urban youth identity. There Ngwatilo found the stuff of poems spewing out of impassioned exchanges with friends, thick in the air at a particular Jozi reading, and alone with her on the road between Venda and Johannesburg. There was little to do but hold on.( http://www.myspace.com/ngwatilo )

• Human Rights Watch seeking Africa Executive Director

  Posted: April 10, 2008, 9:05 pm by Kwani

  Human Rights Watch (”HRW”) is seeking a highly-qualified, senior-level
  professional to head its Africa Division.

  Description: The Executive Director of HRW’s Africa Division is
  responsible for the development and implementation of strategies for
  HRW’s work in Africa and ensuring the setting of programmatic
  priorities, including response to emergencies. S/he is responsible for
  overseeing the division’s research on human rights violations and for
  developing effective advocacy and communications strategies for maximum
  impact. S/he represents the organization frequently before the
  international media and meets with government and other high-level
  officials and coordinates with key colleagues, both within HRW and
  externally with allied organizations and local NGOs. S/he manages staff
  based in three continents, including Africa, supporting their
  development and overseeing security in the field. The Executive Director
  is also responsible for fundraising, identifying and recruiting donors,
  and drafting funding proposals. She or he preferably will be based in
  the organization’s New York City headquarters or another major HRW
  office, but other locations, including a key capital in Africa, may be
  considered. This position requires frequent international travel.

  Qualifications: The ideal candidate will be a self-motivated, creative,
  strategic thinker with substantive, senior-level experience working on
  human rights issues in Africa and the capacity to serve as an effective
  advocate and activist. S/he will have excellent leadership, management
  and organizational skills, including the demonstrated ability to lead a
  team of talented professionals in multiple global locations. She or he
  will be able to juggle multiple tasks and work collegially in a
  demanding, diverse, and fast-paced environment. The ideal candidate will
  have excellent oral and written communications skills in English and
  ideally another relevant language, keen political judgment, proven
  initiative and follow-through, the ability to work quickly and well
  under pressure, and a commitment to human rights. An advanced degree in
  law, international relations, African studies, public policy, or a
  related field is desired, as is familiarity with international human
  rights law.

  Salary and Benefits: HRW seeks exceptional applicants and offers
  competitive compensation and generous employer-paid benefits. HRW will
  pay reasonable relocation expenses and will assist employees in
  obtaining necessary work authorization, if required. Citizens of all
  nationalities are encouraged to apply.

  PLEASE APPLY IMMEDIATELY by emailing in a single submission: a letter of
  interest describing your experience, your resume, names or letters of
  reference, and a brief writing sample (unedited by others) no later than
  April 1, 2008 to program@hrw.org. Please use “Executive Director,
  Africa Division” as the subject of your email. Only complete
  applications will be reviewed. It is preferred that all materials be
  submitted via email. If emailing is not possible, send materials
  (please do not split a submission between email and regular post) to:

  Human Rights Watch

  Attn: Search Committee (Executive Director, Africa Division)

  350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor

  New York, NY 10118-3299

  Fax: (212) 736-1300

• Otieno Amisi - A Tribute, by Tony Mochama

  Posted: April 10, 2008, 12:28 pm by Tony Mochama

  Otieno Amisi’s last critique was published about a month ago (Literary Discourse, February 17, 2008), post-humously - a month after his death on January 16.

  The problem with dying during a period when a nation is undergoing the proverbial Chinese “interesting times” is that one’s demise is buried under an avalanche of stampedes.

  On the day Amisi died, Pentagon member, Mr Najib Balala, was running helter-skelter through Kenyatta Avenue, with GSU officers wielding tear-gas cannisters in hot pursuit.

  These were dangerous times; live bullets were being used to disperse demonstrators in the Opposition strongholds. In fact, the police shooting of an unarmed protester was captured by a KTN cameraman.

  A jolly George O was making fun of a ‘psycho-cop’ and paid dearly for his harmless antics. His last words: “Why have you killed me?”

  Amisi’s death was a quiet affair, sad and I do not know what his final words were. I do however know what his final critique was on my poetry anthology What If I Am a Literary Gangster? and what his last words to me were.

  On December 2, 2007 at Impala Grounds, Nairobi, where Story-mmoja was holding an event, he took the book from me and said: “I am going to do a review of this anthology.”

  Then blinking bright owlish eyes at me, and smiling impishly, he added: “I look forward to reading your response.”

  When I learned of Amisi’s tragic passing, from fellow-journalist, Francis Ilahaka, as I loitered along Loita Street several weeks later, I told my editor, Ms Jane Godia, that I would do a tribute to Amisi.

  Then I thought of our decade-long amiable relationship with Amisi over the years (1997-2007) and realised it was actually a series of literary skirmishes that never degenerated into personal hostility.

  Amisi was playful, sometimes biting in his literary criticisms. He sharpened his pen, without poisoning the tip, and fenced wits careful not to hurt.

  And so instead of the usual ‘lionising’ and eulogising, I will simply bid him farewell.

  Dear Amisi, in your last critic Critics divided as ‘gangsters’ invade the literary scene, you sounded the alarm that men such as Kiraitu Murungi (Song of my Beloved), Raila Odinga (An Enigma in Kenyan Politics), Kalembe Ndile (My Squatters, My Struggles, My Dreams) and myself (What I if Am a Literary Gangster?) have joined ‘the literary fray.’ This is better than the mass history fed to our youth.

  Back to my book, you wrote that some say this “footloose underground writing with urban lingo should be encouraged.”

  I tend to agree with those some, in the sense that I think poetry ought to move beyond the merely ‘heavy letter’ stuff, so that high school students can see the art as the foundation of both critical thought as well as recognise all that is beautiful about the ‘lingo’.

  You said that my approach to serious international issues like global trade imbalances and freedom is light-hearted. True, but not quite. Look at the irony, as demonstrated in the poem Trading Places.

  I prefer, Joe Ngunjiri’s views on my work as showing “a soft heart,” to Egara Kabaji’s who merely sees “defiance, with no poetry or art in it.”

  My poem Sad Dodo begins: “A girl I knew once told me, that I thought it was ‘cool’ to be sad, and spitting Dido at me she told me I’d end, my life dead as a Dodo ”

  Is that not poetry? Don’t we all end life dead as dodos?

  This story was originally published in the Standard newspaper on March 23, 2008

  Tony ‘smitta’ Mochama is a poet and journalist who lives and works in Nairobi. A Law graduate, Tony is also a vodka connoisseur, gossip columnist extraordinaire, and has a collection of short stories coming out soon titled – ‘The ruins down in Africa’. He has also been called a ‘literary gangster’, from time to rhyme. His collection of poetry, ‘What if I am a literary gangster?’ was published by Brown Bear Insignia in 2007.

• Identity and Violence - Daniel Waweru

  Posted: April 10, 2008, 12:27 pm by Daniel Waweru

  In Kenya, violence abounds, as do analyses of its causes and consequences. One quick way of dividing opinion on the matter is to ask four questions: (i) Was the violence planned? (ii) Was it ‘ethnic’? (iii) Was there ethnic cleansing? (iv) Was it ‘political’?

  We aren’t short of people who will answer no to all save the last for boring political reasons; we needn’t worry about them. But others, for presumably non-political reasons, will do likewise. Timothy Williamson once said, in a slightly different context, that “unless names are invidiously named, sermons like this… tend to cause less offence than they should, because everyone imagines that they are aimed at other people.”

  Maina Kiai, Tavia Nyong’o, here’s looking at you.

  My targets offer distinct arguments. Tavia argues that ethnicity is the form, rather than the content, of Kenyan politics, from which it follows, we must assume, that the violence isn’t ethnically motivated. Maina’s testimony before the US House of Representatives’ subcommittee on African affairs included the claims that: (i) ‘What [was] going on in Kenya [was] a political crisis with ethnic
  manifestation because politics in Kenya is organized ethnically,” and (ii) “The violence [was] neither genocide nor ethnic cleansing: The root of the problem [was] not that different ethnic groups decided they could no longer live together.”

  I hope it is evident that the reasoning in each case is unsound. The notions of ‘form’ and ’substance’, which are central to Tavia’s piece, are nowhere clearly characterised. If the substance of politics is the goal at which political action is aimed, then the central claim of the article is false. Kalenjin ethnonationalism, at least in its extreme reaches, is territorial: one of its central aims is the
  exclusive enjoyment of large parts of the Rift Valley. And it imposes normative requirements: Seroney was lauded for the Nandi Hills Declaration in 1969; then, as now, Moi was blamed for not restoring ancestral land to Kalenjin ownership. On a natural construal of ’substance’, ethnicity is part of the substance of Kenyan politics.

  Maina’s testimony may be disposed of briefly. It is not a condition of either genocide or ethnic cleansing that whole communities decide that they cannot live with each other: by that standard, there was no genocide in Rwanda in 1994, for many Hutus chose to defend Tutsis. Equally, from the fact that Kalenjin who protected Gikuyu or refused to participate in the violence were often assaulted, it doesn’t follow that ethnic cleansing didn’t happen in RVP. Likewise, of course, for events in Nyanza, Central Province, and elsewhere. The criterion given is transparently irrelevant.

  So, we have obviously clever people making obviously false assertions and giving obviously bad arguments for them. What gives? We’ll get there, but, first, a quick reminder of the lay of the argumentative land.

  In the past, the Luo Union traded on exclusively ethnic lines; in the present, Transcentury has precisely zero non-GEMA shareholders. Months ago, I had the utterly surreal experience of reading, in quick succession in a bookshop in Nairobi, Colin Leys lament the inability of the Kenyan middle classes to overcome ethnic cleavage in their own obvious common class interests, and Prof. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o on the necessity of breaking off the Gikuyu bourgeoisie (in an obituary for Ramogi Achieng Oneko, no less). If
  ethnicity already motivates this kind of irrational behaviour, should we not expect it to motivate violence too?

  If you want to explain the violence, you need to explain how attackers are mobilised, how victims are chosen, and how attackers conceived of their victims (more precisely: why the attacker thought the victim merited the attack).

  Class is a poor explanation for all of those: for much of the post-election violence, it doesn’t determine as neat an explanation as does ethnicity. But wait, why are we talking about class and ethnicity at all? Probably because class and ethnicity are (pre)supposed to be exclusive and jointly exhaustive explanations for the violence. The fight is then over which of these is the real cause of the violence.

  The offending assumptions come in different flavours: the unsophisticated idea that class and ethnicity are competing explanations and that class is the sole cause; and the slightly more sophisticated thought that even if class and ethnicity jointly explain the violence, class is the dominant factor because ethnicity is reducible to it in some way. Pending the promised submersion of ethnicity into class, we have no compelling reason to accept the second. The first ought not to be taken seriously, either: there have been distinct kinds of violence, and those who wish to show that there is one cause for all of them bear the burden of proof – it is a heavy one.

  To show that the violence is politically motivated is to make it respectable (or at least comprehensible). Class is a vaguely ‘political’ concept, so the violence is explained in class terms. The gain in intelligibility justifies the choice of class to explain the violence. That overlooks the point that killing people for the identities they bear is also a political act. Any intelligibility gained by appealing to political categories is as available to those who choose identity as it is to those who choose class. Respectability, it appears, is the only reason for denying ethnicity its explanatory power.

  Returning to Kiai and Nyong’o, you’ll notice that they’re at one in denying that ethnicity has independent motivating power: for them, its potency is derivative. In this boggy and treacherous terrain, that thought is the landmark by which the parties orient themselves. The premise is false, which is why those who take their bearings by it have arrived at such strange conclusions.

  Ethnically motivated violence is what it is and not another thing. The beast stares us in the face. Time to stare it down.

• Brotherhood, Or, Dirty Socks

  Posted: April 10, 2008, 12:25 pm by Keguro Macharia

  Even now, the memory of his socks assails me. It was, as with most smells, slow to arrive but full in the moment of its arrival. At first, simply a hint, cause for sniffs and questions. Eventually, ripe, pungent, unmistakable.

  This is a story about brotherhood.

  He was a jock and I sang in the choir. He played rugby and I won awards for “best female.” I devoured Oscar Wilde and he, it is rumored, toyed with steroids. He made being a certain kind of man easy. I struggled to grow into a body that I inhabited uncomfortably. There was little to bind us except the shared experience of first form, shared in the sense that both of us evaded bullying, and the fact that my bed was next to his.

  For weeks, if not months, I inhaled the scent of his rugby-infused socks. His body-at-work became my nightly vaporizer. Each triumph, each loss, each practice, each match, all distilled to this ether. To say that I smelled his socks might be accurate. To say that I inhaled his essence grapples with a more profound truth about how we became brothers: not blood of my blood, but smell of my smell, skin of my skin, air of my air.

  He was only one of the many boys and men I encountered over the course of high school, where the splashing water of adjacent showers meant we shared dirt and clean; the bowls from which we served our rations bore the traces of our dipping spoons; the cold night air carried our discordant voices trying to master traditional English harmonies; and the ground bore the indelible marks of our indistinguishable shoes.

  This was not a brotherhood forged in battle or shared struggle, nor did it partake of those fictions of blood and shared origin. Its fragility was its strength, its tenuousness offset by its tensile strength.

  He was taciturn and I was chatty. I recited poetry and he spoke in sports formations. I barely remember if we spoke after that first eventful year. Our lives diverged, mine devoted to pianos and the men who play them, his devoted to hockey and rugby. When he succeeded, the school cheered. When I succeeded, the school booed.

  Had you called us brothers, it would have been unremarkable. We might have quibbled over who was the elder, the more attractive, the more talented, but, ultimately, we would have agreed that we were brothers. It was not a brotherhood based on what we shared. It happened across ethnicities, across religions, across social interests, across personal tastes, even across sexualities.

  It is the very impossibility of its possibility that anchors my hope in Kenya’s possible futures. For this story is not idiosyncratic or unique. It is shared across schools and workplaces, in army barracks and local bars, on buses and in planes. To smell a stranger might begin an intimacy through which to forge a household, a community, a province, a nation.

  Keguro Macharia is completing his Ph.D. in the United States. He writes non-fiction prose, and has recently been published in Wasafiri and the anthology Identity Envy: Wanting to be Who We are Not. He is a member of the Concerned Kenyan Writers collective, and can be reached at kmacharia @ gmail . com

• Internship Opportunity - GenerationKenya.com

  Posted: April 9, 2008, 2:44 am by Kwani

  GenerationKenya.com is seeking a full time intern to start immediately. This is a brand new website dedicated to telling Kenyan stories through literary narrative and artistic photography. The prospective intern must:

  Be fully computer literate
  Be able to write pitch proposals and budget outlays with a professional flair, keeping in mind time lines.
  Work well under pressure
  Have good administration skills (excellent record keeping, imprest, reports, contact databases etc)
  Be well groomed and able to work as a team.
  Have an interest in photography or creative writing
  Know basic accounting
  Be able to work unsupervised

  Please email your CV and a brief cover letter to: melissa.wainaina@generationkenya.co.ke
  *please write ‘internship’ as your subject heading*

• Calling out: ‘Reading Stages’ workshop

  Posted: April 2, 2008, 11:47 pm by Kwani

  Goethe-Institute in association with Kwani Trust will run a two-day workshop
  intended to provide young creative writers and writing enthusiasts
  interested in establishing and running reading stages in Nairobi and around
  the country with the tools to do so. The workshop will be held on June 5th
  – 6th and will culminate in a free public performance on June 7th.

  To participate in this workshop, please submit 1) a letter of interest and
  2) up to 3 poems or 1000 words of prose to workshop@kwani.org. You may
  alternatively post your application to P.O. Box 2895, 00100 Nairobi for
  review. Selection for participation in the workshop will be based on the
  quality of the work submitted and the applicant’s communicated interest in
  or efforts made to propagate new literary forums and communities in Nairobi
  and around the country. We ask that applicants discuss what their vision is
  for a new forum and articulate the reasoning for bringing one to
  their chosen community. While we expect that many applicants will
  themselves be writers, we equally invite literary enthusiasts to apply.

  The deadline for submissions is May 7, 2008. Entries sent after this date
  will not be accepted. Selected participants will be contacted by May 14,
  2008. Questions and concerns may also be directed to the above addresses.

  We look forward to hearing from you.

• Politicised Funerals - Stephen Partington

  Posted: April 2, 2008, 4:24 pm by Kwani

  Pity our waheshimiwa,
  haggling over corpses
  like a parody, a farcical enactment
  of great Brutus and Mark Antony.

  Pity them, the pinstripe dogs
  who chew upon the bodies of the dead.
  It’s such a growling way
  to offer your condolences
  to family and friends.

  Is it their pay that makes them rabid?

  Come, let’s pity them.
  For, see, they cannot grieve,
  not for their allies nor their enemies.

  In death, we all are meat:
  come see our leaders
  rip and spit and tear and eat.

  The mourners see it, take a peek:
  the bored-stiff chap inside the coffin’s
  gone and voted with his feet.

  Stephen Derwent Partington is a teacher and writer based near Machakos. He has previously published a poetry collection, SMS & Face to Face, in Kenya. His poetry and academic prose has appeared in various respectable publications, and he is at present a contributing member of the group, Concerned Kenyan Writers for Justice.

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes