Caption One of the oldest and most enduring debates in world literary thought concerns the role of literature in society. For centuries, scholars, philosophers and readers have disagreed not only on whether literary works are morally good or harmful, but also on how the very act of reading shapes us before we even begin to assess any book, play or poem. This is far from an abstract quarrel. It has, at different moments, shaped what can be taught in schools and which works are performed on stage, particularly across Africa. Elsewhere, the debate has tipped into matters of life and…
Author: By Henry Munene
Sudanese poet and literary scholar Taban lo Liyong is one of the earliest and most virulent African critics of the consumerist world we live in today. In Meditations in Limbo, later reissued by Heinemann (London) as Meditations, he voices his detestation of “normalcy.” In a poem not coincidentally titled ‘Normalcy’, the persona laments that “we live in an age of faith, faith with the advertising men”. He lumps the advertising men together with “the Joneses, the priests of old and juju witches” and “the modern psychiatrists” as the purveyors of normalcy and high priests of belief. Follow The Standard channel…
There is a whole mystical world in the minds of children that gradually gets lost as we age. Or at least that was the lesson I drew from a school called Thorn Tree in Rongai, on the outskirts of Nairobi as you head towards the majestic Ngong Hills in Kajiado County, many, many years ago. We had just finished working on a storybooks project. The laid-out dummies looked great. We had come up with reels upon acres of brightly coloured page-spreads. The illustrations had been meticulously executed, following editorial briefs revised many times in a dozen editorial conferences. One afternoon,…
A parent shopping for text books ahead of schools openning day at Savanis Book Center along Latema Road, Nairobi on January 6, 2025. [Kanyiri Wahito Standard] Imagine sending a 48,000-word script for a novel, short story collection, or another literary work to a publisher. Now assume it is accepted, and after signing the contract, a staggered print run of about 3,000 copies is ordered with a local printer. You collect your six obligatory author’s copies, then head home and cross your fingers. Quick math tells you that, given the perceived apathy towards your genre in East Africa, you would be…
Some of Makumi Njue’s work in display at his stall in Runyenjes town. [File, Standard] About two weeks ago, at a serene spot in Embu fashioned out of a farm that once hosted caves inhabited by Mau Mau during the liberation struggle that led to Kenya’s independence in 1963, I met one of the most versatile artists I know. Makumi Njue has a number of reggae songs to his name, has a group that re-enacts traditional Embu music, carrying on the work done by the late historian, Prof Mwaniki Kabeca, and Prof Emeritus of Literature Ciarunji Chesaina, who has written two beautiful books: Oral Literature of Embu…
Most Kenyans I’ve met seem to harbour fond memories of their high school days – especially the set books they studied for their final-year exams. Whether at the local pub, in Parliament, in courtrooms or other public spaces, we often light up when an opportunity arises to relive the events or quote the fictional characters we encountered during our initiation into literary appreciation. I am no exception. Many years later, I still find myself and my agemates likening people in our lives to those memorable characters from back in the day. It was in high school that I first encountered…
Dan Aceda during an interview at the SEMA BOX podcast studio on July 19 2022. [Esther Jeruto, standard] It is said that, in Africa, stories grow on trees. There could be a million interpretations for this aphorism, but for me it captures the centrality of stories in the African cosmos. It is well known that writing originated from Africa, and so did art. Or how could the cradle of mankind not claim the honour of being the first-ever home of stories, music and the artistic kit and caboodle that comes with life? That said, it is a settled matter of…
Late author Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o. [File] As a young university student slightly more than two decades ago, I wrote in an earlier incarnation of this page what I thought was a stinging criticism of the then fixation with Ngugi wa Thiong’o and other older writers back then. I touched several raw nerves at a time when critics were outdoing themselves in condemning publishers, panels that selected set books for high school and just about everybody for according preference to older, well-known writers at the expense of new ones. While today I strongly believe we are not doing enough to…