Though we constantly vilify ourselves for being a nation that reads until university and then after that, read if and only when the situation demands, Kenya has a rich oral and literary history.
Here’s a look at three Kenyan literary master classes, you shouldn’t go another day without reading:
The Wizard of the Crow
by Ngugi Wa Thiongo
by Ngugi Wa ThiongoA book that seems particularly apt given Kenya’s present struggles with grand corruption. Cutting, and full of farcical mockery of the leaders of a fictional African State, Aburiria. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny.
One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina
Being on Oprah’s bookshelf alone should get your fingers twitching to get hold of this book. A broad, ambitious project straddling the writer’s youthful years across Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. A Kenyan contemporary classic.
Coming to Birth by Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
Macgoye, who came to Kenya from England in 1954 passed away last year. But she left us with perhaps her greatest literally work in, Coming to Birth – published in 1986. A unique, heartfelt story that interweaves a young girl’s attempts at finding her way in a country that is itself just in its infancy.
