Fuck Granta… thanks, Granta

"If I was smart, I would have waited a few years and made an iPhone app: a little satirical story about how to write about Africa every day, interactive and adaptable, for ninety-nine cents. Fuck Granta… thanks, Granta." Binyavanga Wainaina

In 1962, as many African countries were gaining independence, Heinemann’s African Writer’s Series introduced some of Africa’s most important writers to the continent, and to the world. At the time, the idea of a series spanning the continent seemed reasonable: many countries were encountering the same phenomenon, at the same time.

Almost 50 years later, the media revolution combined with the ongoing flow of immigration has opened up a chapter in African writing. A new generation of African writers has arrived Over the past six years, partly through the efforts of publishing and literary networking through institutions like Kwani (www.kwani.org), Farafina (www.kachifo.com) and Chimurenga (www.chimurenga.co.za). In 2005 Granta published The View from Africa, featuring "fresh voices from Africa, in all their differences". In the same year Bard College created the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists, "a world class institution that serves a new generation of African writers". The Orange Prize for Fiction was awarded in London 2007 to Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, and the Caine Prize for African Writing has introduced new writers to agents and publishers. Writers like Chimamanda Adichie, Alain Mabanckou, Chris Abani, Petina Gapah, Marie Ndiaye and Seffi Ata are known and read in many African countries, in the African diaspora, and in Europe and America.

The True Story of David Munyakei, The Goldenberg Whistleblower

Edited by Billy Kahora

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.

Published by Kwani Trust, Kenya
9966700897/ 9789966700896

[bigger story, how to lose zero]

The Life and Times of Richard Onyango

A street-to-canvas account of one of Kenya's most successful artists, from his beginnings as a musical apprentice at the Coast, to lover of Drossie, to his emergence as a force in the international art world.

68pp, KENYA. KWANI TRUST.
2008 9789966700858 Paperback

The Life of Mzee Ondego

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.

Published by Kwani Trust, Kenya
North American Distribution
9966718206/ 9789966718204
Kwani

How to Write About Africa - Binyavanga Wainaina

Kwani • March 24, 2008

This trio of sharp-witted essays takes irony to a new level. In How to Write About Africa, Wainaina dissects the African clichés 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. It’s a short step from there to the speculation, many years later, that “a $9-dollar-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya,” whose “dollar-a-day people” continue to fascinate the “$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.”