Top10Tuesdays: Nairobi’s Top 10 Female Writers

From Storymoja Hay Fest, Kwani Sunday Salon, Worlds Loudest Library, Goethe literary readings, the numerous open-mic readings that dot the cityscape, these women skulk literary events like harpies waiting to jump onto prey. While said prey might once have been dashing city bachelors, these days, the literary lasses have their sights set on more glorious goals. Having deserted the shrine of Aphrodite, they now follow after Mercury, winged god of the pen, for their dues. Who are these nymphs, what is their game plan to get to Olympus? Read on and find out.

 

1. Muthoni Garland

While everyone is attending literary festivals, she is setting them up. Known more for her organization Storymoja and the Storymoja festival, not many are aware of the wickedness she also wields with a pen. Not afraid to touch taboo topics such as incest (Tracking the Scent of my Mother), her explorations on race relations and sexuality (Odor of Fate) do not simply skim the surface, they go to the deeps. Hers is not just empty writing, it is writing with color, magic and flavor. Her semi-memoir retelling the 70s, as a young feisty cowboy booted, proudly smoking lass on her way to America, is one that will remain with you for years to come. Muthoni, more, we ask for more! Many do not know that she was nominated for the Caine Prize in 2006, that her books are studied internationally and that her publishing house has produced close to 100 books (children’s and adult’s) in the span of eight years. In 2014, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development approved 26 of these. Muthoni’s just kick-ass like that.

2. Sitawa Namwalie

Not many know it, but many years before she became a poet, Sitawa Namwalie was a tennis star, representing Kenya at venues as far as France, Canada, Latin America, and even Wimbledon. With performances so full of soul and depth, which pay homage to the soul of modern Kenya, she has been at the fore of taking modern Kenyan poetry to the world with Cut off My Tongue, Homecoming and Silence is a Woman. Having started performance poetry in her 50s, Sitawa inspires all us younger lasses to realise that perhaps life doesn’t end after 50, it starts in full throttle then! The rumor mill has it that she is in the middle of penning a memoir. We rub our hands with glee, we just cannot wait!

3. Caroline Nderitu

Notable for being the sole poet on the scene in the 90s, it would be sinful to leave Caroline Nderitu’s name out in anything poetry related. When poetry was still considered nothing, she determinedly carried its flame on in local papers, on the media and public events, making many of those budding poets that came after her realize that perhaps, their dreams were valid. Caroline is older sis of writer and poet Alex Nderitu, current PEN Kenya sec gen.

 

4. Shailja Patel

Has a poets work ever made the hair on your skin stand, send shivers creep down your spine? That’s what Shailja Patel’s performances do to you. The color, flair, depth and political engagement this poet brings to the stage sends your head reeling. She too has been touring global circuits since the century’s early years, when even having a Kenyan music artists perform abroad was a big deal. Shailja still keeps her poetry alive, and occasionally engages in social justice causes both local and international. Speaking of activism….

 

5. Philo Ikonya

If a writer is not a troublemaker, they are not doing anything of note. That’s our story and we are sticking it. Philo Ikonya is troublemaker per excellence, her brand of this reserved for the worlds of activism and writing, which are in themselves closely intertwined. It’s not just the causes she stands up (rising food prices, poverty, anti-corruption), its her overall colorful and outrageous mien. At the Post-Election crisis , Philo donned sack cloth and walked barefoot around the city, just stopping short of clanging on sufurias on the roads to get public attention. Kenya’s favorite PEN president to date (she is now in Norway, she is missed) the past ten years have seen a wave of new works tumble off her (This Bread of Peace, Kenya Will you Marry Me, Splintering Silence, Still Sings the Nightbird, Leading the Night, among others). You can find glimpses of her poetry on her soulfully titled blog- Nightbird.

6. Yvonne Owuor

Yvonne first hit the scene in 2003, when she won the Caine Prize for the short story Weight of Whispers. Of the writers in the nation at large, almost none goes to the depths Yvonne does, both in terms of the places she takes her characters (remember Kuseremane? Our hearts still bleed) and the amount of feeling her writing evokes. It heads straight for your bone marrow, squeezing every blade of emotion dry. At the end of reading Yvonne, you are tired, spent, a limp rag doll. It is called ‘purging’. And indeed purging was the mission of Dust, an official apology to the soul of Kenya.

 

7. Okwiri Oduor

This child is delightful, that’s the only way to put it. Mysterious and enigmatic, the same aura pervades her writing, which is takes you to fanciful places and makes you think. Okwiri’s writing is elegant, sophisticated, it is like a cup of hot chai masala on a cold day; writing that you want to take in slowly and savor, let sit on your tongue. One of the new generation of writers and part of the Jalada group, Okwiri had been active on the local literary writing scene even before she came to national prominence with the Caine Prize win of 2014.

 

8. Carole Mandi

Many know her as a publisher but we remember her from way back before she got into all that, when she was still writing her ‘That’s Life’ column in the Sunday Nation in the 1990s. Touching on the complexities, twists and turns of life, she asked the questions we often asked ourselves on the meaning of life, and gave wholesome and helpful answers that no one else did. By allowing the public access into her personal world, she unknowingly played the role of ‘big sister’ for many soul seekers that felt lost and confused. As teenagers, she armed us with the insights to navigate a world we could barely make sense of.

 

9. Njoki Chege

When no one was reading newspapers any more and people weren’t sure exactly what to do with their Saturdays, along came Njoki Chege with her impish and provocative point of view, giving Kenyans an agenda for the day: Share her articles on social media, whine about her on the rooftops, take everything she said personally. Njoki’s resonance reassures us that there is still the possibility of engaging with the soul of the public through mass media and gives us a clue as to where the national psyche of ‘the masses’ is at this time and age. While as many people love and hate her, we salute her for her ability to tap into a vein yet unrealized, and cause a now recognized national vitriol over items in popular culture, such as (of course) the ubiquitous blue Subaru.

 

10. Wanjiku Mwaura/ Eudiah Kamonja/ Aleya Kassam

This last one is a fight between women of the generation of early 30s whose works we read on occasion and totally, totally love. Wanjiku Mwaura on stage is dynamite, Eudiah Kamonjo’s boldly sexual and sultry poetry put the E in EROTIC, Aleya Kassam drips so much soul that you just want to put your head down and drown in it. For your reading and getting-your-mind-blown pleasure, all of them are presented here. Go off and plunge into their works, to the satiation of your liking.