I attended a book launch last Saturday at Mageuzi, the official seat of the potential next Prezzo of the Republic of Kenya, Bonnie Mwangi.
Hubert Harrison: Forbidden Genius of Black Radicalism, by the Kenyan-American academic Brian Kwoba, excavates a little-known black journalist, activist, and educator whose thoughts and politics influenced major black leaders of the last century, including Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican pan-Africanist and precursor of the Rasta movement.
Since this was a history text and its author is an academic, I was anxious that this might be another stuffy encounter, as academics pontificate, as they always do, about methodologies and historiographies.
To my relief, two-thirds of the audience said they were members of a lobby called Pussy Power, yes, that’s right, so understandably, the focus of Harrison’s politics swiftly turned to a particular chapter that delves into his ideals of “free love” and admonishes monogamy as unnatural and imposed by the Western world.
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In the heat of the moment, it was plentiful. I had to interject and alert the prancing proponents of Pussy Power that I was the father of the towering young in my company, and whose baritone did not betray his tender age, at just 18.
That’s to say the conversations were a lot livelier and happier than most book launches and, characteristic of our host, the cocktail served in a tall glass turned out to be a syrupy brew of muratina.
I intend to return to Mageuzi soon, and I don’t mean that in jest; when my friend Bonnie becomes Prezzo, when I hope to join his kitchen cabinet, brewing muratina.
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By Peter Kimani