I like to refer to him as the founding father of contemporary Kenyan writing as it is during his tenure as the founding editor of Kwani Trust that writers like Yvonne Owour , Parsalelo Kantai, Muthoni garland and poets like myself, Dennis Inkwa, Grand Master Masese, Micheal Kwambo, Leon Kiptum and many others were discovered through their publications as well as the Kwani open Mic event which still runs upto today.
That was in 2003. He had just won the Caine Prize for his first novel, Discovering Home.
Since then he has written an essay’ How to write about Africa‘ which became very popular
Binyavanga Wainaina is now currently writing his memoir ‘One Day I will Write About This Place’ due to be published in August 2011 by Graywolf Press (US) and in November 2011 by Granta Books (UK).
In this vivid and compelling debut memoir, Wainaina takes us through his school days, his mother’s religious period, his failed attempt to study in South Africa as a computer programmer, a moving family reunion in Uganda, and his travels around Kenya. The landscape in front of him always claims his main attention, but he also evokes the shifting political scene that unsettles his views on family, tribe, and nationhood.
Read an extract of the memoir here.