Kwani? is Africa’s most exciting new writing initiative, and these works have won and been shortlisted for the Caine Prize. The content includes poems, short stories and serious nonfiction pieces. The short story, Weight of Whispers by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing.

Kwani?

Literature & Fiction

World Literature

Kwani Trust

'This is the novel Uganda-and not just Buganda-has been waiting for. Here, history comes alive in such sensual and accurate detail. For many of us who draw a blank when seeking pre-colonial family histories, this multi-layered story makes us re-imagine, reclaim, and yes, re-live what has been lost.' Doreen Baingana, author of Tropical Fish 'An ambitious modern epic that takes in family saga and the history of Uganda, fusing the urgency of the present with the timelessness of myth.' Jamal Mahjoub, author of The Drift Latitudes In 1754, Kintu Kidda, Ppookino of Buddu Province, in the kingdom of the Buganda, sets out on a journey to the capital where he is to pledge allegiance to the new kabaka of the realm. Along the way, a rash action in a moment of anger unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. Time passes and the nation of Uganda is born. Through colonial occupation and the turbulent early years of independence, Kintu's heirs survive the loss of their land, the denigration of their culture and the ravages of war. But the story of their ancestor and his twin wives Nnakato and Babirye endures. So too does the curse. In this ambitious tale of a family and of a nation, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi skilfully weaves together the stories of Kintu's descendants as they seek to break with the burden of their shared past and to reconcile the inheritance of tradition and the modern world that is their future.

Kintu

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

This trio of sharp-witted essays takes irony to a new level. In How to Write About Africa, Wainaina dissects the African clichÈs and preconceptions dear to western writers and readers with a ruthless precision. In the same fashion, My Clan KC undresses the layers of meaning shrouding the identity of the infamous Kenya Cowboy. And in Power of Love, we start with a bemused recollection of the advent of the celebrities-for-Africa phenomenon, heralded by the mid-eighties hit song We Are The World. Itís a short step from there to the speculation, many years later, that ìa $9-dollar-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya,î whose ìdollar-a-day peopleî continue to fascinate the ì$5-dollar-a-day, 25-year-old backpackers who came and loved and compassioned and are now the beneficiaries of $5000 a month consulting for the United Nations.î

How to Write About Africa (Kwanini?)

Politics & Social Sciences

Wainaina, Binyavanga

Social Sciences

In this story, Seth Karanja, Madam's professional driver, is having an extremely bad day. Tribe has risen against tribe and his niece, Wacera, has fallen pregnant. To do Madam's bidding, move from place to place and think calmly of a solution to his niece's pregnancy, Seth has to watch out for the machetes on the street. Wambui Mwangi revisits a Nairobi under siege after the 2007 elections, and presents a day in the life of this character as Kenya burns.

Internally Misplaced (Kwanini?)

Mwangi, Wambui

Literary

In April 1992, David Sadera Munyakei, a newly employed clerk at the Central Bank of Kenya started noticing irregularities in the export compensation claims he was processing. On July 31st 2006, Kenya's biggest whistleblower passed away in rural obscurity, 14 years after exposing the Goldenberg scandal, Kenya's biggest economic scandal to date, estimated at over USD 1 billion. Billy Kahora recounts his story.

The True Story of David Munyakei: Goldenberg Whistleblower (Kwani? Series)

History

Kahora, Billy

Africa

Mzee Ondego, Kenya's greatest choirmaster and Kenyatta confidante tells the story of his relationship with Kenya's founding father. Unknown as the man behind one of Kenya's most influential songs - the haunting dirge that played on during those fateful days after the death of Kenya's first president, Mzee Ondego remembers a time that has become part of Kenya's living memory.

Life of Mzee Ondego (Kwanini?)

Ondego, Mzee

Kwani? 1

Short Stories & Anthologies

The second in the kwani? series published by Kwani Trust, this journal features works from a range of writers, mainly Kenyan. Parselelo Kantai's Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys Band was runner up at the Caine Prize for African writing, 2004. Fiction, poetry and bold nonfiction pieces, well selected to suit a range of readers and their tastes. The controversial piece by Uwem Akpan, An Xmas Feast, was first published in this journal. A reworked version of it was published in the New Yorker  the first time for an African writer.

Kwani? 02

Kwani? is Africa’s most exciting new writing initiative, and these works have won and been shortlisted for the Caine Prize. The content includes poems, short stories and serious nonfiction pieces. The short story, Weight of Whispers by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing.

Following and keeping close to the great tradition set by its three predecessors, Kwani? 4 presents a wail of new voices in literary concert with the not so new. The now established talents- Binyavanga Wainaina, Muthoni Garland, Doreen Baingana- share these pages with the fast risers: Billy Kahora, Mukoma wa Ngugi and Shalini Gidoomal. And Kwani? 4 has delved deeper into the all those spaces where the Kenyan story lives: the street corners, the neighbourhood pubs, the in-between semi rural places where the clash of cultures- the traditional versus the modern- continues to redefine the social roles of the individual, dismantle patriarchal constructs and still retain the pithy wit and the devices of ancient orature that time and the ritual of the communal fireside have honed. Still, as though in ridicule of such notions of Africa as being the continent on the lee side of the Digital Divide, Kwani? 4 reaches into the burgeoning realms of the Kenyan blogosphere to bring such politically aware, borderline intellectual and only-two-degrees-shy-of-rebellious voices bringing a fresh look at the old themes of politics, slices of life and religion and placing them alongside such taboo subjects as sex beyond the hetero-normative ideal. Kwani? 4 is established in Africa as the space for cutting-edge new fiction, mind provoking non fiction and photo-essays and witty graphic narratives.

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Kwani Trust publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kwani Trust

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Kwani Trust publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Kwani?

Kintu

How to Write About Africa (Kwanini?)

Internally Misplaced (Kwanini?)

The True Story of David Munyakei: Goldenberg Whistleblower (Kwani? Series)

Life of Mzee Ondego (Kwanini?)

Kwani? 1

Kwani? 02

Kwani?

Kwani?