Thursday, March 6, 2014

NAIROBI ART SCENE vibrant as ever

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Busy month for Kenyan creatives

Mike Kyalo’s ‘Tell n Sell’ art. Photo/Margaretta wa Gacheru

In Summary

Visual art exhibitions that have already opened in the last few days include one man shows at Alliance Francaise, Kuona Trust and Que Pasa Restaurant.
At Alliance Francaise, it’s Mike Kyalo whose exhibition “Tell and Sell” features images of street vendors selling all sorts of items.
Meanwhile late last week, at Kuona Trust, Kevin Oduor mounted an amazing show of metallic sculptures that he calls Exhibition II.

By Margaretta wa Gacheru
More by this Author

The New Year hasn’t seen any slowdown in artistic expression among Kenyans.

This past weekend witnessed clear-cut evidence to that fact when Kuona Trust invited the public to attend its first Valentine Art Fair on Saturday, offering art works for as low as Sh6,000 and inviting people to have their portraits drawn by local artists.

There was live music and lots of yummy homemade food.

That same day, the Kenya Television and Film Writers held their Inaugural Meeting at PAWA254.

No limits were set so not only established but also aspiring screenwriters were on hand to take up the challenge of exceeding the artistic excellence of both Nollywood and Bollywood as well as Hollywood, of course.

The idea being that everyday life in Kenya is filled with drama, comedy, mystery and satiric twists that deserve to become screenplays either for TV or film or even for live theatre!

VARIETY
Visual art exhibitions that have already opened in the last few days include one man shows at Alliance Francaise, Kuona Trust and Que Pasa Restaurant.

At Alliance, it’s Mike Kyalo whose exhibition “Tell and Sell” features images of street vendors selling all sorts of items.

Based under umbrellas and in Kyalo’s mind, the vendors are often artisans available to explain and hold impromptu “workshops’ for prospective buyers of their wares, be they crafts, home furnishings or food of assorted types.

Meanwhile late last week, at Kuona Trust, Kevin Oduor mounted an amazing show of metallic sculptures that he calls Exhibition II.

Oduor is one of Kenya’s most prolific, conspicuous and versatile sculptors who’s best known for his life-size Dedan Kimathi sculpture that stands in Nairobi’s City Centre right at the junction of Kimathi and Mama Ngina streets.

His most recent work of public art is at the Makadara Railway Station and he has another magnificent piece out at the Syokimau station near Mlolongo. (We must applaud Kenya Railways for supporting Kenyan contemporary art and artists.)

Existence II is a stunning yet quirky exhibition of mainly men’s trousers which Oduor has created as if they’re worn by dismembered guys who like casual, slightly oversized pants.

Each piece is carefully creased and wrinkled to look lived-in, which makes them all the more interesting and fun. What was Kevin thinking? And why only the bottom half of all of these guys?

Dickson Kaloki’s solo show at Que Pasa in Karen is about to close next week so one had better slip by before the restaurant rotates his work back to Kuona where one may also find his mono-toned Mukuru ‘slum art’.

Go to Business Daily for the full article

YOUNG MAASAI ACTORS star in French Doc Film

Friday, February 21, 2014

Up-and-coming actors from Maasailand

Salome and Jackson Saikong. Photo/MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

In Summary

The English translation of the Pascal Plisson documentary may not have a flashing ring to it since ‘‘On the way to school’’ sounds rather pedestrian.
But the film’s Kenya premier, which served to cap off the seven-film showcase of practically brand new French films, was anything but dull.
Featuring four sets of pre-teens coming from very different backgrounds and corners of the globe, the one common denominator among them was each having to face and overcome a myriad of obstacles in order to fulfil their dreams and go to school.
by Margaretta wa Gacheru
While Lupita Nyong’o’s break-out film 12 Years a Slave just won Best Motion Picture award this past weekend at the 67th British Academy Film Awards or the BAFTA’s in UK, our favourite Kenyan film star didn’t get the Best Supporting Actress award as we had hoped.

Instead, it went to Jennifer Lawrence for her zany role in American Hustle.

Yet Lupita still has one more chance in two weeks time to win big-time when the 86th Academy Awards in Hollywood are announced.

Our girl is a strong contender again for Best Supporting Actress; although this time she’ll be up against even more formidable odds as there’s not only Ms Lawrence.

There’s also Julia Roberts for her part in August Osage County and Sally Hawkins who played Cate Blanchette’s sister in Blue Jasmine.

Lupita has already won multiple film awards, been featured in countless interviews and walked on a multitude of red carpets looking super-photogenic and ultra-chic.

In the meantime, while all eyes were either on London, Hollywood or New York where Lupita’s now the darling of the paparazzi, right here in Nairobi the just-ended 11th French Film Festival introduced two youthful local talents to the limelight this past Monday night when their film, Sur le Chemin de l’ecole premiered at Alliance Francaise.

The English translation of the Pascal Plisson documentary may not have a flashing ring to it since ‘‘On the way to school’’ sounds rather pedestrian.

MANY OBSTACLES
But the film’s Kenya premier, which served to cap off the seven-film showcase of practically brand new French films, was anything but dull.

Featuring four sets of pre-teens coming from very different backgrounds and corners of the globe, the one common denominator among them was each having to face and overcome a myriad of obstacles in order to fulfil their dreams and go to school.

The other six films screened during the festival included various genres: there was drama (Pour une Femme), comedy (Camille Redouble), bittersweet tragedy (Cloclo), animated action adventure (Kirikou et les homes et les femmes) and several films that mixed several genres into one (Pop Redemption and Duvent dans mes Mollets). Sur le Chemin de l’ecole is billed as a documentary since it captures real life experiences of children whose families reside either in rural Argentina, India, Morocco or Kenya.

But because Plisson was highly selective in his choice of children and geographical terrain, his film seemed more like a panoramic docu-drama filled with everything from drama and adventure to touching emotional moments when the children faced enormous, even life-threatening, obstacles on their way to school.

One of the highlights of the premier was the appearance in person of the two Kenyan stars, Jackson Saikong and his little sister Salome.

Selected in 2011 when Plisson visited six primary schools in Laikipia County and met nearly 1,500 children, Jackson had an instant appeal for the Frenchman who found the 11-year-ld at the last school on his list, Soit-Oudo Primary.

Speaking to the Business Daily shortly before the film’s Kenya premier, Jackson (whose full Maasai name is Jackson Molloyian ole Saikong) said Plisson asked him very direct questions:

How far do you walk to get to school every day? “15 kilometres each way,” was his reply, which turned out to be the farthest distance that any other child walked on a daily basis in the district.

What, if any, dangers do you face along the way? “Hyenas, snakes and buffalos as well as elephants, cheetahs and lions,” Jackson said. The fact that the boy took his little sister (three years his junior) over the same treacherous terrain made the boy of even greater appeal to Plisson who went on to spend three weeks with the Saikongs, accompanied by only one cameraman and one soundman.

The beauty of Plisson’s cinematography is that the children come across as utterly natural and unaffected by the camera, even when they have to run away from elephants and Salome spills her precious plastic pitcher of water as she flees for her life.

The spillage is all the more salient since the film opens with Jackson digging for the water that both he and Salome will bring to school.

This is part of his daily pre-school routine, along with collecting sticks that they carry for making the lunchtime fire.

Life has changed a great deal for Jackson and Salome since they first met Plisson. Both children are now sponsored to attend the best primary school in the district.

Both have travelled (accompanied by their guardian, head teacher Ms Anne Resiano) all the way from Laikipia to Paris for the film’s official launch, and to Qatar where they starred at an International Youth Conference.

So Jackson (now 13) and Salome (now 10) may not yet have the celebrity status of a Lupita, but the success of Plisson’s film and the opportunities it has opened up for them suggest the sky’s the limit for these two blossoming Kenyan film stars.

CONSERVATOIRE'S SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA celebrates 70 year Gala

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Custodian of Kenyan music marks 70 years

Guest conductor Vijay Upadhyaya of Vienna, Austria, does what he knows best at the Kenya Conservatoire of Music orchestra during the music school’s 70th anniversary concert at the Braeburn Theatre in Nairobi, on February 22, 2014. PHOTO | Margaretta wa Gacheru NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

The key to the gala’s success was the 11-year-old Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra
The conservatoire’s orchestra reflects the changing complexion of Kenyan musical culture

By Margaretta wa Gache

More by this Author

The 70th anniversary gala of the Kenya Conservatoire of Music was celebrated at the Braeburn Theatre last weekend with performances of everything from Mozart and Beethoven to traditional indigenous Kenyan music and dance.

The key to the gala’s success was the 11-year-old Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Vienna-based conductor Vijay Upadhyaya.

Preparations for the celebrations have been under way for many months, according to Conservatoire director Corinne Towett, who has been running Kenya’s leading music school for the past six years. Originally a piano student at the school, Corrine went on to teach there; but when the job of MD came up, she applied and got it.

The first African woman to get the position, Corrine isn’t the first indigenous Kenyan to be director in a field that historically has been filled with expatriate Europeans.

Prior to her taking up the post, Atigala Luvai held the post. It was he who realised the school needed its own orchestra. And so, in the first days of the 21st century, he inaugurated the conservatoire’s own symphony orchestra.

Made up of practically all Kenyan students of the school, the conservatoire’s orchestra reflects the changing complexion of Kenyan musical culture.

For, while we may think the singular musical interest that young Kenyans have is in hip hop and rap, the conservatoire’s orchestral team of musicians are practically all indigenous Kenyans in their 20s.

YOUNG MUSICIANS

“There’s one 14-year-old flutist and one cellist in his early 40s,” said violinist Charles Ralak, the ‘leader’ of the orchestra, on Friday night just moments before the final rehearsal under the baton of the India-born guest conductor, Professor Upadhyaya, at Kenya Cultural Centre, home of KCM.

It was that youthful enthusiasm that infused the entire gala performance with grace, sparks of humour and electrifying vitality last Saturday night.

During both halves of the gala showcase, the first was filled with duets, solos, the award-winning Nairobi Chamber choir and even a song from the conservatoire’s first musical production Seventeen.

The second half featured the symphony orchestra that was so well-received that ‘Vijay’ (as he is fondly known) had to conduct not one but two encores.

Of course, the Saturday night audience was filled with family, friends and invited guests.

But the conductor, who had only had one week to rehearse with the orchestra, also elicited an obvious endorsement from the audience; given the 47-year-old chairman of Vienna University’s music department exuded warmth, interactive energy and an indisputable affection for both the music and the orchestra.

Brought to Kenya courtesy of the Austrian Embassy, Professor Upadhyaya first came to conduct the Conservatoire orchestra together with St Paul’s choir a year ago when the church’s choirmaster requested the embassy to provide them with a top professional conductor.

The rationale of the request was simple, explained Corrine. It was because the choir was intent on singing a Mozart mass, and Mozart was of course an Austrian. So the embassy approached Vienna University where Upadhyaya conducts as many as nine orchestras and three choirs (with support from four assistants). But he had no problem taking time out for the Kenyans since he feels strongly that the Kenya Conservatoire is destined for greatness.

“It is one of the few music schools of its kind in Africa, and it’s getting stronger by the year,” the conductor said.

“And one of the most exciting aspects of the school is that it has just expanded its teaching reservoir to include the oboe, French horn and bassoon, as well as several indigenous Kenyan instruments.”

So far, only one Kenyan, Alex Waweru, has taken up the call to begin learning the bassoon. But despite only playing for the past one year, Waweru still stole the show during a hilarious spoof on the seriousness of classically-trained musicians.

Playing a fumbling buffoon in a duet with Nathaniel Gachukia, Waweru’s silliness brought the house down with amusement, only to give way to a brilliant solo piano performance by Gachukia, who was just one of many Conservatoire students who are changing the face of musical excellence in Kenya today.

VETERAN KENYAN ARTIST'S PAINTINGS 'VANISH'

Crime of the West’ stalks Kenya as oil paintings vanish

PHOTO | FILE Veteran artist Sane Wadu (right) whose two paintings went missing last year. Another painting was sold for Sh1.3 million at an auction in Nairobi last November. NATION

In Summary

Sane Wadu’s two paintings went missing last year, and police say they are investigating
The Sunday Nation has pieced together the sequence of events surrounding the alleged theft of Sane Wadu’s two paintings – New York 9/11 and Shall we crucify him?
Ms Peninah recorded a statement at Gigiri Police Station in which she says the driver took the paintings from the guest house last August. She said she felt her promise to Mr Kofi to keep the paintings safely had been fulfilled until that point.
Work by Adrian Nduma sold at a private sale in 2012 for Sh2.2 million, while a piece by Mr Brush (Mr Wadu’s mentor) sold for Sh2 million at Gallery Watatu in 2011.

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU More by this Author

The alleged theft of two oil paintings by a Kenyan artist whose work recently sold for more than one million shillings has turned attention to a crime usually associated with developeountries.

The Sunday Nation has pieced together the sequence of events surrounding the alleged theft of Sane Wadu’s two paintings – New York 9/11 and Shall we crucify him?

The paintings are said to have gone missing sometime after January 13, last year, when Ghanaian collector Osei Kofi, the managing director of Nairobi’s now-defunct Gallery Watatu, flew home to Geneva, Switzerland.

Mr Kofi is alleged to have left the two large paintings in the safe keeping of a Ms Peninah, the proprietor of a guest house near the Village Market mall in Gigiri, and then told Mr Wadu where the paintings were.

The arrangement was that Mr Kofi’s driver, Stephen Kimani, would deliver the paintings to Mr Wadu’s home in Naivasha or take them to Mr Wanyu Brush, Mr Wadu’s trusted friend who lives in Ngecha village in Limuru.

When the paintings were not delivered to either man, Mr Wadu says he called Mr Kimani periodically between February and November, last year and that the driver always assured him that the works would be delivered soon.

He says it was only in November when he finally offered to pay for petrol for the round trip from Nairobi to Naivasha that Mr Kimani told the veteran artist the paintings were lost.

Mr Wadu immediately went to Central Police Station in Nairobi where he was referred to the Gigiri Police Station under whose jurisdiction the guest house falls. Since then, officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations are said to be trying to locate the paintings.

Mr Wadu told the Sunday Nation that he took out newspaper advertisements asking for public support to find the paintings because he felt his case had stalled.

This move seems to have been met with some success because on Thursday, a day after the first advertisement appeared, Mr Wadu said the police called him to meet both Ms Peninah, the owner of the guest house, and Mr Kimani, Mr Kofi’s driver.

KEPT PROMISE

Ms Peninah recorded a statement at Gigiri Police Station in which she says the driver took the paintings from the guest house last August. She said she felt her promise to Mr Kofi to keep the paintings safely had been fulfilled until that point.

Mr Kimani admitted during questioning by police that he took the paintings from the guest house to his home in Ruiru for safekeeping. It was after that that the paintings are said to have disappeared in unclear circumstances.

At the meeting with detectives, Mr Wadu, who was accompanied by his wife Eunice and fellow artist Wanyu Brush, said the driver and the businesswoman maintained their innocence. Police investigations continue.

In the meantime, Mr Wadu said he hopes that if the paintings have been sold, the new owners will hear about the theft and return them to him.

The disappearance of the paintings could be a sign of the growing interest in Kenyan contemporary art, especially Wadu’s work, as well as the awareness that it is worth money.

An auction of Kenyan art last November organised by the Circle Art Agency made a record Sh18.5 million in sales.

Mr Wadu, a veteran of the Kenyan art scene who began selling his work through Gallery Watatu in the 1980s, did especially well. His six-panel “World Trade Centre” sold for Sh1.3 million.

Work by Adrian Nduma sold at a private sale in 2012 for Sh2.2 million, while a piece by Mr Brush (Mr Wadu’s mentor) sold for Sh2 million at Gallery Watatu in 2011.

While still very low by international standards, the prices of works by sought-after Kenyan artists like Sane Wadu continue to rise.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

LUPITA'S 1ST Oscar paves way to future fortune

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/Oscar-win-puts-Lupita-on-the-road-to-fortune/-/539550/2229638/-/g5hgky/-/index.html.

Oscar prize puts Lupita on road to lucrative contracts

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Lupita Nyong'o accepts the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role award for '12 Years a Slave' onstage during the Oscars at the 86th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California March 2, 2014. Phoro by AFP

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Posted Monday, March 3 2014 at 21:19

Not since Princess Diana grabbed the imagination of the media and fashion world has any young rising star gained the sort of paparazzi prominence as has Kenya’s first Oscar award-winner Lupita Nyong’o.

The big difference between Lupita and Lady Di might not simply be that one was a British royal and the other a newly crowned Hollywood one; or that one shunned the paparazzi while the other beamed brightly whether on the Red Carpet, on late night American TV talk shows or on the covers of glossy fashion magazines, ranging from Vogue and Vanity Fair to Harper’s Bazaar, Essence or InStyle.

The big difference between the two beauties isn’t even that one was pearly white, the other jet black.

It is that Lady Di while living among the royals couldn’t collect cash on any of the media coverage that she received so abundantly.

But Lupita’s day in the sun comes with cash, loads of cash for the young Kenyan who will find winning an Oscar a most effective key when it comes to opening doors to big-money contracts.

In fact, even before she made history at the 86th Academy awards, Lupita had already signed lucrative multi-million-shilling contracts for not only more Hollywood films (starting with NonStop with Liam Neeson) but also to showcase practically every inch of her body – from her pedicured toes all the way up to the tip top of her natural ‘crew cut’.

Unlike the Nobel Prize that Dr. Wangari Maathai won in 2004 which came with a cash prize of US$1 million, the Academy Award that Lupita just won on Sunday night, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 12 Years a Slave, didn’t afford her a single penny.

The prestige of being honored by the American Academy of Arts and Science with an Oscar was meant to suffice.

But from the experience of other female Oscar award winners like Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie and Julia Roberts, one can reasonably estimate the worth of an Oscar when it comes to winning million dollar contracts.

Each of the Oscar winners have found it a stepping stone to multi-million dollar appearance contracts in lucrative advertisements for nearly everything in the fashion, luxury and leisure world – from make-up to alcohol to haute couture.

Besides they were readily signed on to make more movies, many of which earned millions at the box office.

READ: Lupita Nyong'o wins Oscar in debut role in '12 Years a Slave'

Cate Blanchett for instance earned her first Oscar for her starring role in ‘Elizabeth’ in 1999 and got signed on to make the sequel and appearances in countless films, from The Lord of the Rings series, Robin Hood and Indiana Jones to most recently, The Monument Men and Blue Jasmine for which she just won the Best Actress award at the Oscars.

Similar contracts came to other female Oscar winners including Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Jennifer Lawrence.

What’s more, they are not the only ones in high demand. In 2011, Anne Hathaway was reportedly paid a whopping $750,000 (Sh65 million) by Tiffany & Co. to wear the brand’s jewelry when she hosted the Oscars, while Louis Vitton shelled out $500,000 (Sh43 million) for Gwyneth Paltrow to wear its jewels on stage.
And Jennifer Lawrence recently found herself in the middle of a bidding war between designers who were fighting to have her wear their dresses to this year’s Oscars. From the look of Lupita’s pre-Oscar schedule, the contracts may be coming in droves.

She has already been tipped “the toast of the beauty world” by Grazia UK – meaning that when she wears, for instance, fashion by Prada, Christian Dior or Calvin Klein, she gets paid a bundle.

This is merely because wearing these items offers them what Ann McCreath, founder of the Kiko Romeo fashion house, calls a “huge brand endorsement.”

That is also why everyone from shoemakers to jewelers to make-up artists will henceforth want their names associated with Lupita. For instance, at the recent film premiere of her latest film, NonStop, the media photos cited brand names for everything she had on, from the gown, shoes and make-up to the jewelry.

Such details are included in practically all the online images of Lupita, which implicitly means those brands are willing to pay top dollar just to be associated with Hollywood’s “It girl” of the season.

One of the notable contracts that Lupita has bagged is to be a ‘top model’ with Miu Miu for its Spring 2014 fashion campaign.

Gaining her first experience of modeling with Ms. McCreath at Kiko Romeo some years back, Lupita was well prepared to receive the call from the high fashion house that came out of Prada in 1993, founded by Miuccia Prada.

It is unlikely that the Miu Miu campaign will be Lupita’s last modeling gig. For every time she gets spotted by the paparazzi with the likes of Oprah, Sidney Poitier, Anna Wintour or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Lupita’s personal brand value also rises exponentially.

Every time she is interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, Guardian UK, Vogue, Vanity Fair or Essence magazines, her market value also shoots up significantly.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

KAMICHA & YASSIR in bold colors at Banana Hill Gallery

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/artists-who-love-bold-colours/-/1248928/2157566/-/12phv53/-/index.html. by Margaretta wa Gacheru

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Two artists who love bold colours and African imagery exhibit works

Kamicha’s ‘‘Hyena’’ and ‘‘Survival of the Fittest.’’. FILE

Yassir Ali and John Kamicha have been buddies for almost a decade. They got together as studio mates at the GoDown Art Centre when Kuona Trust was still there.
Both painters who work with bright, bold colours and African imagery; both have a sense of their heritage. But their current exhibition at the Banana Hill Art Gallery is the first time the two have had an exhibition of their work together, not in a group show but just the two complimenting each other with their various styles, subject matter and technique.
Wildlife
Kamicha might be mistaken for a wildlife artist for, indeed, he paints all manner of creature that populates Kenyan game parks, everything from hyena, zebra and giraffe to vultures, skeletons, spiders and wasps.
Both artists favour mixed media and collage; both make abundant use of mitumba textiles, particularly those rich in design, fine detail and bold colour.
Yet where Yassir works kitenge designs into his backgrounds, often adding layers of paint to overlay and mute the bright mitumba hues, Kamicha blends the kitenge designs into the wildlife’s face and body, lending an eerie sense of beauty to otherwise odious creatures such as the hyena, vultures and even wasps.
It’s that twisted kind of contrast between the elegant and the odious that makes Kamicha much more than a traditional wildlife painter.
In fact, Kamicha’s work is anything but conventional. His message may be cryptic, but one has a sense that between predator and prey in the wild, his art focuses more on predators and scavengers rather than on those preyed upon.
Yassir’s art is more abstract and iconic than Kamicha’s, although both seem to paint in symbols, causing the viewer to suppose he’s not simply seeing pretty pictures but rather images having a deeper, more significant meaning.
Evocative
Yet one can’t avoid feeling Yassir’s art values beauty, balance and cultural depth more than Kamicha’s.
Not that they both don’t express a skilful sense of beauty, only that Kamicha has no problem blending the elegant and the ugly.
For instance, one of his paintings is filled with skeletons surrounded by scavengers who’ve obviously enjoyed a feast. It’s an evocative work of art wherein even the leafless tree on which the vultures perch is knurled and struggling to survive the dry wasteland of drought.
Coming from Sudan where he studied at the prestigious Khartoum University College of Fine and Applied Art, Yassir was a student of African history as well as a fine art major.
The artist himself explains that having a strong sense of his connection with the Nubian civilization is no surprise, given he grew up in northern Sudan where his home village was filled with literally hundreds of Nubi pyramidswhich were much smaller than those found in Egypt, but they both were built to house deceased nobility whose spirits were said to reside in those solid stone structures.
Symbols
Growing up visiting such impressive remnants of Nubian civilization had a profound impact on the artist. It’s especially evident in the assorted symbols seen in virtually all of his paintings, which are somehow similar to what he used to see when walking through the interiors of those pyramids as a young boy.
Noting that the Nubians were around long before the Egyptian civilization, Yassir admits having a deep-seated affinity for Nubi antiquity has given him the quiet sense of identity and self-assurance that comes from knowing who he is and where he comes from.
“I identify as an African, a Sudanese and a Nubian,” Yassir says. Having such a deep sense of his cultural roots has definitely inspired his art, which he says is meant to celebrate that early African civilisation.
One of nearly a dozen Sudanese artists who’ve migrated to Kenya since the early 1990s, Yassir believes that they all reflect an appreciation of that early African civilisation in their art.
His use of bright and beautiful colour combinations may give off a feeling that he merely creates intricate decorative paintings, not striking commemorative art that celebrates an indigenous African civilization that he feels all Africans can claim their own close connection to.

Back to Business Daily: Two artists who love bold colours and African imagery exhibit works

KENYA no longer a 'literary wasteland'

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/art-culture/Kenya-can-no-longer-be-termed-literary-wasteland/-/1954194/2012754/-/jax5f8/-/index.html. by Margaretta wa Gacheru

30/9/2013

Kenya can no longer be termed literary wasteland

Taban lo Liyong did Kenyans a backhanded favour when he called East Africa a ‘literary wasteland.’

From L to R: Mongane Wally Serote, Muthoni Garland and Mukesh Kapila. Photo/FILE

In Summary

Kenya takes pride in Ngugi, Muthoni Garland, Grace Ogot, Binyavanga and others.

Taban lo Liyong did Kenyans a backhanded favour when he called East Africa a ‘literary wasteland.’ His words have successfully served as a spur in the hearts, minds and pens of Kenyan writers whose works have proliferated since the 1960s when the likes of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Grace Ogot and even Jomo Kenyatta were first published.
Since the 1970s we have seen street writers like David Maillu (After 4:30), Meja Mwangi (Kill me Quick), and Charles Mangua (Son of Woman) telling stories and often self-publishing because their works were not necessarily taken seriously as good literature.
That evaluation has changed over the years, but to date, Ngugi has been the benchmark and the way for young aspiring Kenyan writers.
Women writers like Asenath Odaga, Pamela Kola and Muthoni Muchemi, again, have, since the 1980s, often specialised in writing children’s literature and drawing on indigenous oral traditions to remind Kenyans of their grandparents’ wonderful stories, many of which would otherwise have been lost.
Important poets have also been writing since the Seventies and Eighties, such as Jared Angira, Jonathan Kariara, John Mbiti, Micere Mugo, and Okello Oculi; so when Taban’s words re-echo in Kenyans’ hearts and minds, it may be because his vitriol was so mean, not because of the verity of his literary vision.
Kenya’s literary world was given a shot in the arm in the early 21st century after Binyavanga Wainaina won the Caine Prize and went on to launch Kwani?, the local literary journal with funding from the Ford Foundation. Kwani? has proved to be an important platform for aspiring young poets, painters, cartoonists and short story writers.
But somehow we still seem to hear Taban’s words reverberate in the Kenyan media where too often we hear that “Kenyans don’t read” even though we know this is not really true.
Illiteracy is still too high in the country; that is true. But what is also the case is that people readily gobble up local newspapers and magazines. If it weren’t so, all the second hand book and magazine vendors wouldn’t be so visible in Nairobi streets and walkways.
REVOLUTION
Nonetheless, an even stronger shot in the arm for our local literary scene got started five years back when the acclaimed Kenyan writer-publisher Muthoni Garland reinforced her StoryMoja ‘reading revolution’ by launching the StoryMoja Hay Festival and brought together both global and local writers into a vibrant four-day forum, the latest one ending last weekend.
This year’s Story Moja Hay Festival ended tragically too soon with news of the untimely demise of the great Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor who had come with several other esteemed African, Asian and Western writers to be on panels, run master classes and generally inspire students and aspiring local authors to write all the more.
Out of respect for Awoonor and sympathy for the families who had lost loved ones in the Westgate Mall terrorist attack, Muthoni shut down the Festival last Saturday afternoon and organised a memorial dedicated to the professor who’s been called ‘African literary royalty’ along with the likes of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.
Yet before the festival was closed, there were many outstanding panels, workshops, master classes and presentations, including the Wangari Maathai Memorial Lecture by the former head of the UN in Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, who gave a moving account of the atrocities that continue to unfold in Darfur, events described in his book, Against the Tide of Evil.
The Kenya Chapter of the Arterial Network also organised a ‘Catch Up’ panel at The Theatre Company tent on the theme ‘Making a Living as a Writer.’ One of the unspoken issues affecting all writers everywhere, not just in Kenya, the topic attracted a cross section of young writers.
Proving that writers need not be only penurious and unpublished poets, ANK’s Kimani wa Wanjiru assembled panelists that included Phoenix book publisher John Mwazemba, advertising copy writer and former Phoenix Player Teddy Muthusi, film producer Faith Koli, playwright and NGO media consultant Oby Obyerodhiambo, and Jackson Biko, freelance writer and editor of Msafiri magazine.
They shared practical ideas about how writing skills can put bread on the table.
Kenyans have come far from the days when Taban’s echo made sense. The country is now a bountiful harvest field of literary accomplishment.