BY THE BOOK: Carey Baraka

Carey Baraka is a writer from Kisumu, Kenya. He is a founding editor and member of Enkare Review.

His writing has appeared in Enkare Review and The Single Story Foundation among other journals, and he has been anthologised by Jalada Africa and Black Letter Media.

Tell me the three books that excited you the most in 2017?

I’m going to interpret this as meaning books I read in 2017 rather than books released in 2017. Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies did so many things to me. I bought Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers to read on the road to Kisumu but woke up super early and finished it before the journey. It’s a happy book, or at least it made me happy, and I like that in a book, the ability to bring joy to one’s life. Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird. I almost convinced a friend of mine to name her baby after a character in this book. Almost. She thought it was a stupid name.

Which two books do you hold so dear that they can’t possibly be lent out?

That’s a hard question because I’m the type of person who is going to force you to read a book I like. So the more dear a book is to me the more the likelihood of it not being in my library.

Your fauvorite childhood books? Why?

Harry Potter. I remember being twelve and waiting for the final book to be released then I couldn’t read it immediately because I had to concentrate on my schoolwork and had to wait until the end of the year. Barbara Kimenye’s Moses series. Holy Moses, Rukia, Itchy Fingers and King Kong stood out. I wanted so much to be like them and drink the watchman’s waragi and write a love letter to Miriam Makeba. Which is funny because I can’t really do any of those things now. Especially the first (Hi mum!).

If you were to dine with three writers dead/alive, who would they be and why?

Meja Mwangi. The Cockroach Dance has this absolutely phenomenal character, Dusman Gozanga, who was my first idea of what downtown Nairobi and River Road looked like. Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye. Homing In and Coming to Birth are elemental Kenyan texts. Every time I think of Chelagat Mutai I remember Paulina talking about her (that young Kalenjin girl) in Coming to Birth. Joyce Carol Oates for what she does with her sentences, and her ability to paint a community. I’m obsessed with communities rather than individualities, and I haven’t met anyone who is able to give a community the sort of personhood Oates can.

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

Just one? Wow. A House for Mr Biswas. V S Naipaul’s politics is totally messed up, and while I wouldn’t want to meet him in person, when I read that book I was shocked to discover that was his first book. I loved Mr. Biswas, the character, and I lent out my copy of this book years ago and it has never been returned to me. It’s that good a book!

If you were sent off to Robben Island for a year, which three books would you take with you?

Meja Mwangi’s Cockroach Dance. Dusman Gozanga is a crazy character. People obsess over Kill Me Quick and Going Down River Road, but I think this is Meja Mwangi’s finest work, and when I tell people this it turns out almost nobody seems to have read the book. In my opinion, Kenya’s finest piece of fiction. Oginga Odinga’s Not Yet Uhuru. Add a comma to that title, change the first name of the Kenyatta, and boom, the problems Odinga talks about are made current. Soyinka’s Ake. Maybe a solution to the Ngugi’s not-winning-the-Nobel problem is to take a look at Ake and compare the difference in standards between the two.

Do you think book festivals, literary prizes and writing workshops are important to a writer’s growth?

A writer’s growth? If this means a growth in a writer’s writing ability, I don’t think so. However, a writer is more than just the writing, there’s the being the writer too, and that’s important. I was lucky enough to participate in a few workshops when I was younger and there’s something being in close proximity with these writers you’ve admired for a while does to your psyche. Once you interact with writers in festivals and workshops and get to encounter their humanness, you realise that these people are just as messed up as you are, and that if they can do this writing thing then you can as well. Prizes? I don’t know. Well, there is the money, and the opportunity for your parents, family, guardians, your people to brag about you: “Did you hear what our X did? He won this-and-that prize.” I suppose that’s important too.

Most unforgettable character from a book? Why?

I’ve already talked about Dusman Gozanga. But Junot Diaz’s Yunior is such a real and phenomenal character. It’s interesting how people are quick to assume that Yunior is an extension of Junot Diaz. That’s an amazing believability quotient.

Tell me about the last book that made you cry?

Lauren Groff’s Maybe cry is not the right word, but I was so angry at Groff for awhile after reading this book.

Among your contemporaries, who do you consider the most exciting newcomer in the writing world and why?

Michelle Angwenyi. While she’s primarily a poet and a wonderful one at that, her prose so enthralls me. I wish she would write more prose.

What are you currently writing?

Thinking about a novel. Not writing one yet, just thinking.

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BY THE BOOK is a literary series that covers authors, bloggers, actors, academics and poets of note in the African continent. For comments or inquiries, e-mail: [email protected]