Bad Salesmen ruin writers’ fortunes

A recent invitation to a book reading of The Adventures of a Bed Salesman at the German Cultural Centre got me thinking. Are we doing enough to promote writers? Are we doing enough to promote the culture of reading? Do we even have an inventory of local writers or publishers, with their contacts, so we can get back to them with complaints, orders for more copies, or suggestions for new titles or marketing possibilities? 

How, in God’s name, does the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation expect readers to know, for example, that David Maillu’s latest offering, The Man from Machakos is out there, waiting to be read? A public reading, especially involving the writer, a public performance, a theatrical rendition, a street carnival, would sell more copies than a one time review or occasional poster. A thinking bookseller should have got Raila Odinga to accompany his spectacular public appearances with a display of his recently published biography.  But book selling has been always poor in Kenya.

Books have only recently been added to local supermarket shelves, and vendors don’t peddle them around. Even in where they can be seen, locally published titles are still hard to find, except in a few bookshops, which stock even more school books and foreign ‘How to’ titles. In this age of technology and cut throat marketing, it is sad that our publishers still believe that books only belong to bookshops and cold libraries.  Back to the Goethe Institute, which is the only Cultural Centre that devotes one evening a month to book promotion. Several participants have severally asked the organisers to consider including local writers in her menu, alternating a German author with, say, a Charles Mangua or Mwangi Ruheni, or even Stanley Gazemba. But that is asking for too much. Each cultural centre has a duty to promote the cultural life of its respective sponsor, and even when the French or the Italians host the occasional local play or painting exhibition or spotlight on Kenyan music, it is clearly a matter of tokenism.  So the ball goes back to publishers and our department of culture. Psst. Let’s not even talk about that one. Though Meja Mwangi and Ngugi wa Thiongo are fairly well known abroad, it is out of their sheer literary muscle and luck, and not the result of any effort on the part of our embassies there. Many writers in Kenya are thoroughly unhappy with publishers. With increasing access to word processors, most of us have several manuscripts all laid out, edited, proofread and ready to be printed. All we are crying out for is a reputable publisher’s stamp and a promise to pay ‘something small’ for our creative efforts. But who will touch them? Editors say they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of typescripts coming in on a daily basis. Marketing managers will recycle the tired lie about Kenyans not reading or buying books. But poor marketing is to blame. If publishers promoted books more aggressively, the way soft drink manufacturers and condom makers do, they would no doubt make more money to engage more and faster editors, proofreaders and printers, and to buy more paper and ink.  Though I did not manage to attend the last reading, I am a fan at the monthly event, which has been running since mid last year. Last week, actor Sam Otieno was reading the English copy of Hampels Fluchten, a book by Michael Kumpfmüller. His counterpart Stefan Ehlert read the German version. Hampels Fluchten is a picturesque tale of a sexually voracious bed salesman whose life is dominated by his adventures with women. It opens in 1962 as thirty-year-old Heinrich Hampel crosses the Berlin Wall, leaving the West for East.  Charming his way into the hearts and beds of his female customers, Heinrich doubles his turnover, but when an expensive mistress appears, his long-suffering wife Rosa has cause to worry. Now you see why I think our own David Maillu should have been here to interject with excerpts from After 4.30. 

Meanwhile, Kenya-based debut author Dayo Forster will be signing copies of her newly published novel, ‘Reading the Ceiling’ at the Rusty Nail Restaurant, Karen next Thursday (31st May 2007).

The book, which examines a modern African woman’s choices, has been hailed by Binyavanga Wainaina, of Kwani Magazine, who says, “I have great hopes for Dayo Forster’s debut novel. Her prose spits and crackles. In this era of brown fiction in warm places, it is refreshing to read a writer who is simply comfortable in varied skins.”

 Originally from the Gambia, Forster has written a thought-provoking series of narratives that place nearly as much emphasis on education and career in women’s lives as they do on love.”
The book, published by UK based Simon & Schuster, tells the story of a young girl’s coming of age, facing the choices of womanhood and the consequences.Though set in The Gambia, Dayo’s home country, the themes are familiar to all women worldwide.  The book has already received excellent reviews in the Bookseller Magazine and the UK Financial Times and Dayo has been interviewed for Radio and TV broadcast by BBC World Service. 

see also  : www.writethatstory.wordpress.com

Sell yourself. More

When Wyndham Lewis, in his book America and Cosmic Man (1948) coined the term global village, he had not envisaged the coming of the Common Market for Southern and Eastern Africa (Comesa) or even the demise of the wristwatch.

Had both Lewis and Herbert Marshall McLuhan been in Nairobi last week, they would have marveled at how fast the electronic mass media has collapsed space and time barriers in human communication, transforming East Africa into one village.

Today, no one needs a wristwatch, except perhaps as an ornament, and it would take a very good salesperson to get me to buy a watch. The face of my mobile phone turns into a clock in a few lonely silent seconds, and the city council has planted clocks all over, the way they plant trees on cement walkways.

How things change. Until recently, it took fires, drums, gongs, and then banners and fliers to announce the arrival of a prominent person, a new a service, sell a product or make a point. Now billboards rudely cut your view of what’s ahead, radio noises scream viciously at you, and the once haloed television news moments are interrupted by dumb commercials.

So by the time the editor of this paper threw a book at me and demanded a review, I had become used to interruptions.It was the same week the curtains were falling on the ambitious COMESA business forum in Nairobi, and Felix Okach was busy unveiling this new book, Marketing Management Systems.

The coincidence was significant -  the interest in marketing knowledge among specialists and laymen alike is on the rise.

The forum brought together both political leaders and marketing experts from 19 countries and created what has come to be known as the Customs Union. When fully operational by December 8, 2008, the resolutions of the forum will allow traders to sell their products across any of the 19 member countries without paying duty. That’s business, isn’t it? And aren’t we all in business, selling and buying?

It is not surprising that all over the country, virtually all public and private universities, as well as the growing number of tertiary colleges now offer trade related courses. And marketing is among the most popular units. Why?

Beneath the fury of technological and political change, the face of business is changing. Systems that once worked perfectly a few years ago are seen as too slow, more expensive or simply archaic. Cheaper, faster and paperless forms of doing business are in vogue in what is becoming a truly global village.

In a growing economy, in a globalised world,  everyone becomes a salesman or an entrepreneur of sorts, whether we like it or not. It is no longer only politicians, economists designated sales people or front office workers who need to understand and use marketing concepts and terminologies.

Every one of us, if we are to perform better or achieve desired results at our workplace and elsewhere, must carry the corporate logo, speak the corporate lingo, and  log on to modern way of selling.

Everywhere, all the time, whether consciously or not, we are acting as sales agents for ourselves, our governments, businesses, or institutions, and it is important that we understand our ‘customers’ and relate to them better.

It is against this background that Felix Owaga Okach has written the book under review, which he calls “a bible for any serious sales person, a motivator for a depressed high flying sales representative.”

The book examines such concepts as market structure and performance, buyer behaviour, market research, product management and pricing.

It also provides an eye opener on distribution and pricing, promotion, e commerce and an overview on international marketing.

One of the most interesting chapters in the book looks at  how cyber marketing is changing marketing activities.

From traditional advertising on print, radio and television, cyber marketing is taking us to websites, where banners can be placed on related sites.  From making phone calls and actual visits to potential clients and street demonstrations, we are moving into the world of video conferencing, newsgroups, email questionnaires and computer screen demos.

Diploma candidates at tertiary colleges like the Kenya Polytechnic and the Kenya Institute of Management will find this book indispensable, as it has been tailored along the established syllabi and examinations like the ACII (Associate of Chartered Institute Insurance) AKIB (Associate of Kenya Institute of Bankers).

Okatch has taught at various tertiary institutions and has worked at Agip Oil, Elida Ponds, Caltex Oil, Kenol Kobil, Kenya Wine Agencies Limited,  and the International Trade Centre/WTO  Switzerland).

A graduate of commerce from the University of Nairobi, Okatch has published many business stories in local dailies and journals. otienoamisi@yahoo.com 

Shame! Sex Sells

By Otieno Amisi 

Advertising sells. But sexy advertising sells even more. So advertisers put a sex appeal to every commercial. Makes sense and money doesn’t it. And money makes the world go round. Or so said Plutus, the Greek god of wealth.

But there are other priceless virtues. Like selflessness, integrity and dignity. And chastity and charity and virginity. And hard work. Whoever created advertising must have had a warped mind. Advertising is at best, amusement, at worst a nuisance. It is mostly the latter.

Whether it is sect members drumming and screaming themselves hoarse in the middle of what should be a peaceful night, or a huge billboard cutting your view of the spectacular landscape, advertising, like money, makes the word go round. It all depends on which side of life you are on.If you can Raua Mkopo, then these things were designed just for you. So you can walk into a showroom and drive out in a Peugeot just because you have been impressed by those mating birds.

I have no qualms with a flawless feminine upper arm advertising some lotion. But when advertisements want old people to undress, it baffles me. What does a bare-chested pot-bellied father have to do with opening a bank account? OK. We all know banks are so desperate they are vending their loans and services on the street. Unlike a few years ago when they stayed behind steel doors, now they have been made to believe something like the economy is so good everyone has money to keep with them.

So they have made giving out money their core business. But in their desperation, they have thrown decency out of the window. Honestly, parading a man’s multi coloured mitumba underwear on Jogoo road isn’t the better way to get money. And when nude stranger suggests that you meet ‘baadaye,’ I am pissed off.

Greatness is nowadays equated with drinking Guinness. I have never met a great drunk, only several peeing, blabbering, noisy or blacked out ones. And if you drink a certain brand of milk, your teeth would stand up to Conjestina Achieng’s knocks.Women are the worst victims of warped advertising. A new car commercial is not complete until some girl bends seductively near the bonnet, as if to compare her curves and gleam to the machine’s . One brave advertiser even named a car model “Atoti.”

Remember the comely maiden in a flowing red skirt with the mother of all slits? She is sitting opposite a man in an impeccable white suit by a tranquil beach. They were trying to sell some cigarette. Pugh! Journalists know a thing or two about the role of the media, and the virtues I enumerated at the beginning of this essay. But in the newsroom, ideals and ethics are thrown aside at the altar of making money.While newspaper and television journalists know a thing or two about morality and sensibilities, they do exactly the opposite. Every fleeting TV picture is of a couple kissing, every radio debate is about sex positions, and every glossy magazine page is a blinding close up of a naked thigh.

I love reading. So Eve Magazine is a refreshing return to sense after the maddening politics of the dailies and the nauseating nudity of the magazines. It is a welcome break from the numbing obsession with European football. Eve is a celebration of womanhood, of beauty, of greatness, of intelligence and wholesomeness of the woman. It is beauty, maturity, enrichment and knowledge and inspiration all rolled into one.

It is a celebration of a life as lived successfully and happily by women. No whining, battered poverty ridden village scar faced women. Or gossip about those Koinange Street ageless witches.It is about better child rearing, better cooking, how to age gracefully, improving relationships at home, living single and happy after a break up and doing business successfully.

The average reader of Eve wants to confirm that middle-aged women – our peers, our workmates, these mothers and leaders –  have outgrown the cravings of the flesh and are no longer obsessed with sensual pleasure alone. It is easy to see sexuality in rich, famous women. It gives them power and a sense of belonging. But when every page of a magazine is about foreplay, orgasm, lingerie and lesbianism, it begins to look like it’s done for delinquent adolescents. Jut flip through best selling titles like True Love, African Woman or Cosmopolitan.

Someone at the National Aids Control Council should have gone mad by now. We furiously condemn the so-called gutter press, with their sleazy stories in which millionaires and political aspirants allegedly sleep with whoever. But we devour with glee huge billboards and images of stark nakedness. Even in the land of Red Pepper,  Bukedde, Bliss and Seen, these publications are not thrust on your face like it happens on the streets of Nairobi.

Before you call me mshamba or  dinosaur, I will ask you a question. In a world where everyone dreads (or is supposed to fear) a sexual encounter, why would some investors gleefully place sensual images all over the landscape, especially when such images have absolutely no relation to the products on sale?

True, money makes the world go round. But sometimes money turns the world upside down. There are priceless virtues, like selflessness, integrity and dignity. And chastity and charity and virginity. And we seem to have forgotten these. Practically all our waking hours are filled with visual and verbal images of sex. Sex is glamour, showy it is all we need is the message everywhere you look. Is this fair? If it is, perhaps it is time we made sex a compulsory subject in all schools. We could even create a sex department in the ministry of culture and have David Maillu, the father of pornographic literature, to head it. There are more than enough teaching aids going around already.

The cell phone revolution

By OTIENO AMISI and AGENCIES

The chilly morning silence is broken by the melody of a Christmas tune.

Roslida Okongo, an elderly fish trader in Kericho, whisks out a gadget from her leather bag. She glances at the little bright screen, pushes a button, and holds the gadget firmly between her ear and left shoulder. Her right hand scribbles fast on a notebook. Then, with the verbal agility of a senior military officer, she gives quick instructions to someone on the other end. The day’s business has begun.

In the middle of the day, she will probably call Atieno, her househelp, to get updates about her two grandchildren , or to confirm whether Rebeca, her daughter in law has safely arrived back in
Nairobi. For the 55 year old fishmonger and many other small scale traders, the mobile telephone is a godsend.

The handy gadget has made trade easy, saving travel costs and enabling traders to make fast, informed decisions. It has also brought distant relatives and dear friends much closer. At less than the price of a postage stamp or the traditional telegram, important messages can be relayed across the world in an instant, by simply punching a few buttons with a finger.

The last five years have seen a tremendous growth in telephone ownership and use in developing countries. Until the mid-1990s, telephones in poor countries were mostly in cities. Some African countries had only a single telephone for every thousand people.

Since then, mobile telephone networks have spread rapidly in most low income countries. Now many people, even in poor communities, own telephones and most adults make occasional use of them.

The telephone is no longer a status symbol. Even the poorest people can depend on simu ya jamii — or public kiosks and phone shops. Many people can buy airtime bought informally from individual phone owners.

The mobile phone has quickly become a symbol of the use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the developing world.

But who really, needs a phone? What difference do telephones make to people’s lives? And are they important for development?

A new study has found some unexpected answers to these questions. The study, in rural areas, found that most people value telephones very highly for certain purposes, especially for dealing with emergencies and also for keeping in touch with their families. However, the study found that most people do not find telephones very useful for business activities at the moment. Very few find them at all useful for gathering information. The study also found out that the internet, even though increasingly available through public service points in many rural areas, is still scarcely used.

The study has findings that are important for developing country governments responsible for national telecommunications policies, private companies interested in providing telephone services, and development agencies concerned about bridging the digital divide.

Previous research has suggested that demand for telephone services in rural areas of developing countries is likely to be higher than is generally thought.

There has been intense debate over whether private investment or public support will best meet development needs. The report, Economic Impact of Telecommunications on Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction: A study of rural communities, was coordinated by Professor David Souter of ICTt Development Associates and the University of
Strathclyd and funded by the UK Department for International Development. Rural people consider telephones very important for use in emergencies.

The telephone is used extensively to maintain social networks, especially contact within the family. It is also valued more for saving money than for earning money. Richer, better educated people tend to valued the cellphone more than the poorer, less educated or more marginal members of society. 90 per cent of people surveyed said telephones were their most frequent way of communicating in emergencies and for social reasons. The study also found that telephones fit into people’s established patterns of communication and that rural people value telephones very highly as the best means of communication in some of the most important areas of their lives. Many rural people find telephones important for communicating emergencies like death, illness or accident, a sudden financial need, or a natural disaster.

The telephone offers something that no other communication medium can provide – immediate help, especially if it has to come from a distance. Rural people also use the telephone to keep in touch with scattered family members. Because it is immediate and two-way better, it is better than sending a letter, especially in a country like
Kenya where the postal system has come under heavy criticism for being slow and unsafe. Keeping in touch by phone is particularly valued where large numbers of rural people have migrated to cities or abroad. One third of the study’s respondents in these two countries say they receive remittances from absent family members, and some use the telephone to help them manage these.

Besides the radio and television, the telephone is quickly becoming the next most important source of news. More rural people are very confident about information they get from the radio, while fewer can say the same about information they receive from district officials, local leaders or neighbours. Recent research also indicates that use of telephones is rapidly increasing in Africa, while TV use is increasing. In urban areas, radio audiences have been declining, as the television is the preferred medium. For farming and business, education, and political or government matters, the telephone is quickly becoming the preferred tool of communication. Though many people still prefer face to face communication in teaching, extension work, and business, the mobile telephone has made significant inroads in official and informal communication. However, only the wealthiest value the telephone highly for business­related communication. Very few people still see the telephone as useful for information gathering on other topics. Business users value the telephone more for saving time and money, though the phone kiosk has become a major employer across the country. Although the internet is available in many local post offices and commercial outlets called cyber cafes, fewer than 2% of the people interviewed for the study think the internet is a very important tool for passing or receiving information. The fact is that the internet, for whatever reasons, has not become part of the daily lives of many rural people. The study also found that many people value telephones and use them whether they have one of their own or not. Many people use public telephones of one kind or another (kiosk or phone-shop) or rent or “borrow” air-time from an individual phone-owner. Even people who own their own phones also make considerable use of public access services – especially in India, where more homes have fixed lines and fewer people own mobile phones.

In Africa, mobile phones are more common and more widely used, as there are fewer public fixed-line phone kiosks. The desire to own a phone is also widespread. In the survey, at least 40% of phone owners in the sample have acquired their own phone within the past year. At least a third of those without a telephone say they would like to acquire one within the next year. Not everyone in rural areas can afford a phone, of course. There is a distinct group of ‘high intensity users’ – those who own a phone and use it more than once a day.

These people tend to fall in the highest income and educational groups. The poorest and least educated make least use of telephones. But poor people value phones sufficiently that they are willing to spend a higher proportion of their income on them than richer people. Some telephone expenditure substitutes for other costs, such as travel and postal services. For many years, development planners did not pay attention to telephony and the contribution it might make to development. Recently this has started to change, and now it is sometimes assumed that telephones contribute to economic activity for instance, enabling farmers to check prices in different markets before selling their produce. Until now, however, there had been little detailed research.

This study finds that only the wealthier and more educated sections of the sample populations regard phones as economically beneficial and useful for business related information. Even in India, where phones have been more widespread for longer than in the African countries studied, only around 10% of people interviewed say they value the phone for business purposes. At the moment, for poorer people, the perceived economic value of the phone is sometimes that it saves them time and money in travelling – to visit friends and relatives, for instance. Otherwise telephone use is a cost, albeit one they are prepared to pay. Telephone access is highly valued by all sections of the community, particularly because of its potential role in emergencies.

This implies that universal access has substantial social value, irrespective of revenue that may be derived from it by telecommunications operators ­reinforcing the value of universal access strategies and funds from a public policy perspective. However, the high level of use of the telephone for social networking implies that subsidised access should not be required in most rural locations – a finding corroborated by experience in Uganda, where unsubsidised wireless access now covers over 85% of the population of a low-income rural country.

East Africa is a graveyard of Journals

STILLBORN

By Otieno Amisi

I have been following with my ears on end three recent reports. The first was of the revival of the Nairobi Journal of Literature. Then Taban Lo Liyong took a fresh swipe at the dearth of literary criticism in East Africa. The third has been the relaunch of the Writers Association of Kenya.

Literary journals in East Africa have been few and far between. Besides Kwani, there isn’t much literary activity going on in Nairobi, Kampala or Dar es Salaam. Literary criticism, which is the gem of any department of literature or publishing house worth its name, is virtually lacking in the region.

East Africa’s literary history is littered with bundles of journals and magazines- Darlite, Nexus, Black Orpheus, Transition, Joliso, Ghala, East African Journal- and many more. Like many writers, I begun in one of these. I had just graduated in literature, and writing was my dream career. I bought books and devoured them with the enthusiasm I had seen on the faces of my professors at Kenyatta University. Though I had a degree in education, I was much happier as a writer than as a classroom teacher. But the journey has not been as exciting and sometimes I am unhappy when I remember that many of my agemates who went into other careers seem to be doing much better.The turnover of magazines and journals is quite high. Few of them ever live to see their first birthday. My first foray into literary journalism was when I founded The Campus Beacon, a student’s journal funded by Kenyatta University Students Association. The Beacon was a tremendous challenge. None of the writers or editors had any publishing or journalistic experience, funds were scarce, and resources non-existent. Computers, which we now take for granted, were nowhere, and few of us could type. But the writers were plentiful, and names like Okengo Matiangi, (Department of Literature,  University of Nairobi), Peter Nyoro Kimani (editor, Oxford University Press) and Waithaka Waihenya (editor in chief, KBC) easily come to mind.

Funds were scarce. And we were sometimes forced to delete stories that did not portray the university administration or a certain clique of students in favourable light. But I had had a taste of this before in high school bulletins.

After Kenyatta, I went on to found New Age, a cultural monthly which folded soon after its second birthday after its sponsors, Ananda Marga, shifted their focus to Rwanda. But not after Taban lo Liyong, Marjorie Oludhe Mc Goye, Chris Wanjala, ES Atieno Odhiambo and David Maillu had come on board.

So, why would Writers Association of Kenya, or anyone for that matter, want to litter the literary desert with yet another journal that will soon die? Why create more crestfallen enthusiasts to sing dirges and more dirges, like I sing for New Age?

Journals, even corporate inhouse newsletters, are noble  creations which nurture literary talent, create a spirit of community or merely explains a firm’s policies.  Many cultural, business political or literary  magazines are often born at a time when the political, economic or cultural climate is ripe- when as one would say, the winds of change blow strongly over the land, raising the level of consciousness of the people.

In essence, then they represent or manifest a movement in society triggered off by the prevailing political, economic and cultural climate. Remember Njehu Gatabaki and his Nairobi Law Monthly, or Pius Nyamora and Society?

It is therefore not suprising that when the cultural and political tide ebbs and people find their places in business, politics and sports, such magazines are sniffed away like candles. Much like civil society business, which died when the activists became waheshimiwa.

This is principally because so few so called men of letters their founders and sponsors are artists at heart and they would rather invest their intellectual and financial input in apparently (sadly) more socially and financially rewarding activities like politics, law or trade.  

While the immediate pre-independence and post-independence journals sought to assert the creative equality of the black race as compared to the white one, latter day journals have been born out of a strong desire to revive the glories of the past decades and have often helped usher in a new age of articulate, creative and critical intelligentsia.

Many contemporary writers -  David Maillu, Taban Lo Liyong, Chinua Achebe, Lewis Nkosi and E’skia Mphalele- trace their literary formative years to such magazines and journals, principally because the mainstream newspapers hardly publish any serious literary criticism, poetry or fiction. For this reason, literary journals may be seen as a reaction against mainstream journalism, which many literary adherents correctly regard as cheap, temporal and business oriented.

For me it has been a lesson that art, and especially literature, is not the business where money quickly changes hands. There is even less money in literary criticism. Non pecuniary rewards like fame and respect are almost always elusive even for the committed writer. Many publishers pay a meagre 14 percent of the cover price to authors, which does not translate to an uplift from poverty.  And wisdom alone, without wealth, is not respected. Fame, probably. But what is fame if a poet cannot afford a bus ticket to a reading he has been invited to?

East African literary journals are also essentially elitist. Most owe their origins to university literature departments. Take Joliso for example. Its every issue was full of socialist literary criticism. One could even mention a certain lack of intellectual direction and lack of moral commitment. This elevation not only puts away the lay reader- many of our readers fear brainstorming essays and are not ready to learn new concepts, ideas and intellectual gymnastics- but also diminishes sales.

Secondly, most journals are one man shows, just like many Kenyan firms, non-governmental organisations or art societies and associations.

This means that the one man or woman at the top has the final say over what goes into print, where the money comes from, when meetings should be held and where. This opens way to officialese, embezzlement and nepotism. Other people are simply assistants, contributors, admirers. It is no wonder then, that, when sponsors lose trust in such persons, or when members lose confidence in the leader, or the leader himself gets weighed down by too much to do and he cannot delegate because he has neither adequate funds.

Thirdly, the cost of printing is unbearably high. paper prices go up an average three times a year. It requires a dedicated editorial and sales staff to research and collect enough material and advertisements on a meagre pay packet with little or no travel and research allowance.

It is unthinkable to employ qualified literary and sales personnel and keep them on the job. Which leaves one option: The staff must be temporary. But this means they do not devote all their time and energy to the production of the paper.

A fourth problem, Chris Wanjala discusses in For Home and Freedom, is the inadequate support from literary enthusiasts. Few of these so called enthusiasts actually subscribe to such magazines or journals. Perhaps if more of our readers, writers, and publishers took a greater commercial interest in such magazines, marketing could be greatly enhanced.

Publishers can easily chip in by offering help to cover typesetting and even printing costs. And our postal services would do us a great favour if they lowered the cost of postage for printed matter. The internet is here, but I am yet to find a site devoted to East African literature.

Perhaps if we had a vibrant literary society, bigger than Kwani? and the university of Nairobi’s department of literature put together, we could talk of a literary rain forest, overgrown with poetry, fiction and criticism. Will the men and women of letters please stand up to be counted?Otieno Amisi is an Editor at Oakland Media, Nairobi.