Kenyan creative writers shunned by state and publishers

Okwiri Odour, the 2014 Caine prize winner. There is no literary desert in Kenya. Kenyans regularly submit manuscripts to the Caine Prize. Some of them even win. We also have diverse and incessant scribblers publishing themselves on the fringes and on the Internet. PHOTO/COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • Our literary arena is like our un-mined oil fields in northern Kenya. We keep waiting until someone else with better skills and a deeper hunger comes round to tell us that it is there and it should be mined for all its worth in shillings, fame, identity formation and ingenious expression.
  • Kenyans regularly submit manuscripts to the Caine Prize. Some of them even win. We also have diverse and incessant scribblers publishing themselves on the fringes and on the Internet.
  • Yusuf Dawood recently reminded us that our publishers see text-book publishing as their “bread and butter”. This tunnel vision leaves them with no more than step-motherly affection for creative literature.

There is no literary desert in Kenya.

Visit a little bookshop on the ground floor of Bandari Plaza on Woodvale Grove in Westlands, Nairobi, and the teeming litter of local publications will astound you.

Where else would you find Fai Amario’s Kamiti Notebook: Prison Memoirs of a Kenyan Industrialist?

We do have writers. Many. Thoroughly unrecognised creatives are telling their stories amidst the apathy from overwhelmed critics and complacent mainstream publishers.

To insist that there is a literary desert is to pretend that Ngumi Kibera, John Sibi-Okumu, BM Kunga, Onduko Bw’Atebe, Billy Kahora, Sam Kahiga, Meja Mwangi, Michael Onsando, Joy Odera, Mehul Gohil, Veon Ngugi, Tobias Otieno, Stanley Gazemba, Argwings Otieno, Moraa Gitaa, Njeri Wangari, Gichaba Nyantino and hundreds more do not exist.

Our literary arena is like our un-mined oil fields in northern Kenya. We keep waiting until someone else with better skills and a deeper hunger comes round to tell us that it is there and it should be mined for all its worth in shillings, fame, identity formation and ingenious expression.

SHORT-SIGHTED PUBLISHERS

That worn-out phrase “literary desert” overlooks the three accomplished writers who won the inaugural Burt Award for African Literature in 2012 and the other 229 entrants who gave the judges some real work to do.

Kenyans regularly submit manuscripts to the Caine Prize. Some of them even win. We also have diverse and incessant scribblers publishing themselves on the fringes and on the Internet.

What is sorely lacking are intelligent strategies for marketing what exists and for nurturing new generations of writers and readers.

How many mainstream publishers bother with book launches and book signing tours in the counties? How many of them have memoranda of exchange with our public universities or any number of secondary schools? Which publisher has ever posted and paid for a writer-in-residence at any of our universities?

Is there a book club anywhere in Kenya that is regularly supplied with books by a mainstream publisher? What of mainstream and social media sites — do our publishers regularly run literary debates on them?

Yusuf Dawood recently reminded us that our publishers see text-book publishing as their “bread and butter”. This tunnel vision leaves them with no more than step-motherly affection for creative literature. READ: DAWOOD: Why we live in a literary desert

Lawrence Njagi of Mountain Top Publishers agrees that there are, indeed, many active creative writers in Kenya. But, he argues, there are no readers to support the industry because “we do not read for pleasure, we read when we must. Even newspapers, people just skim through.”

Still, beyond a few book fairs, what ground-breaking ingenuity have our publishers shown in cultivating readers? With their lukewarm embrace of creative writers, our mainstream publishers will go the way of the music industry.

When international record labels pulled out in 1984, small independent labels were left to find new talent and promote new genres.

Their work peaked in the millennium spurred by the emergence of CD technology. But, unable to keep abreast with novel file-sharing methods online, those big recording names of the millennium like Ogopa, Calif and Blu Zebra have steadily been blind-sided onto the margins as artistes dignify self-production and control their own repertoire and endorsements.

If book publishers don’t get “with it”, they will be similarly side-lined. The emergence of the hashtag has already turned the Twitterati into the new purveyors of an exciting literature.

For their laggardly pace and a malnourished Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, our mainstream publishers earn themselves the lifetime achievement award for tepid commitment!

AWARDS HIATUS

Established 40 years ago under the auspices of the Kenya Publishers Association (KPA), why hasn’t this award grown into a formidable regional enterprise complete with brand merchandise, product placements, star-studded alumni and apprentices in training?

Awards remain the most publicly exciting efforts amongst the five other conditions that are necessary for artistic and cultural creativity to thrive. But what heady excitement has the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Fiction elicited since its inception in 1974 when Meja Mwangi won in the English category for his classic tale of urban decay, Kill Me Quick?

In going into a hiatus of no awards between 1974 and 1990, ostensibly because of financial constraints, KPA demonstrated a critical lack of imagination in the creation of sustainable cultural institutions.

That long hiatus also illustrated the total neglect that creative writing suffered at the hands of the Moi state.

The colonial government did tons of research before it established the East African Literature Bureau, which later became the Kenya Literature Bureau. The Jomo Kenyatta government set up Jomo Kenyatta Foundation in 1966.

It also created conducive conditions for new publishers such as John Nottingham’s East Africa Publishing House.

Today, what annual commitment does the Ministry of Sports, Culture and the Arts make to creative writers and publishing? Doesn’t it see creative writing as an invaluable space in which the cultural ethos of this country is expressed, debated and forged?

As far back as 1969, John Nottingham “Wamwega”, the colonial District Officer-turned-publisher, was writing in African Affairs to underline the “inestimable cultural advantages” of building an indigenous publishing industry.

Lawrence Njagi, the chairman of KPA, states that while publishers have succeeded in gaining the ear of the Ministry of Education, they find no traction with the culture ministry. That arm of “government has not been supportive of publishers.”

In many other African countries, Njagi adds, governments give significant sums of money for literary awards and incentives to build writers. But not in Kenya. Here, raising sponsorship for awards, even from big corporates, has proved impossible. “We have tried to interest sponsors but either we are not doing it too well or corporates just feel they can get better mileage from products other than readers”.

Instead of progressively contributing to a robust understanding of creative writing, the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature has been guilty of excluding many genres including poetry and plays. And yet, there is so much potential in both, as is evident annually at the Schools Drama Festival.

In 2007, Kwani Trust staged a poetry competition titled “To be a Man” as a way of debating Kenyan masculinities. Kwani was flooded with entries.

On the cool November night when they unveiled the winners, there was an uproar of laughter when it turned out that Poeisiapoa Njeris, author of the winning entry ‘Facing Jeevanjee Garden’, was none other than renowned scribe, politician and activist, Philo Ikonya. But new talent was discovered in the runners-up — Samuel Munene and Ndanu Mungala.

In 2006, a determined KPA launched the Wahome Mutahi Literary Prize with a focus on humour and satire.

As a bi-annual award, it alternates with the Jomo Kenyatta Prize. Aside from paltry finances, Njagi explains, “the other reason for staggering these awards is to allow two years of creativity so that there is sufficient material to adjudge.” 

EMBARRASSING PRIZE MONEY

Obviously, KPA has not looked to KOT and other Twitter handles to uncover the abundance of fresh, drop-down hilarious wags in our midst.

It is ironical and thoroughly discouraging that mainstream media does not sponsor the Wahome Mutahi Prize. And yet, Mutahi perfected his comic skills through a weekly column that contributed significantly to the sales of the Sunday papers.

As for the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, Njagi is “embarrassed to say how much we offer the winners … we do not recognise them well enough”. But there are 101 ways in which a national prize with such a hefty, polemical name can be galvanised into prominence.

True, it must be tiring to have so many things named after your father, uncle, grandfather, but isn’t there at least one member of that extensive family who can be cleverly nudged to commit a life-long interest in the cause of creativity?

Failing that, KPA could persuasively impose a “tax” on every person who carries the surname Kenyatta!

Or should KPA find some other patron of international repute to act as a mascot all over the region drawing dramatic crowds and garnering corporate endorsements, even if it means changing the name of the award?

KPA needs to leverage relevant training institutions to nurture better writing. In 2005, the first prize in the English category of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize could not be awarded because the titles submitted were poorly written and they did not tackle fresh contemporary issues.

Publishers can even embark on e-books and embrace big data analytics — the kind that measure readers’ tastes and tell you how quickly they read, whether they finish a book and what passages are most commonly re-read and highlighted. These kinds of insights can help authors write better books. And the feedback doesn’t have to hamper eccentric creative gambles such as Okot P’Bitek. As with Song of Lawino, such stylistic gambles occasionally result in great literature. 

What of broadening our awards to acknowledge the sheer effort that scribes put into their writing? The harvest on our bookshelves does not tell the entire story of the labours of our writers. There are always piles of manuscripts on hold in the in-boxes of various publishers.

Currently, Ngumi Kibera has six pending titles. His brother, Sam Kahiga, has seven and Gichaba Nyantino has a manuscript or two in need of a publisher who will embrace its wayward genius.

Something needs to be done to persuade such writers never to give up on writing.