QUICK DELIVERY
Swift dispatch
Let the Old Man Speak and Other Poems...
This anthology is a three-part collection of forty three poems written by Odhiambo Kaumah, a teacher of Mathematics and Chemistry, a passionate creative writer and a community organizer for progressive social change.
The pieces, by the prolific author, are as diverse in themes as they are in structure. However, the inspiration behind the pieces is an old voice that attempts to speak sanity to the profanities of the fast-changing, socio-cultural and political practices. Issues such as marriage as it was and as it is, children-parent and youths-elders relationship in the age of "a dancing urban youth population" feature prominently.
Odhiambo Kaumah’s father, an old man with a good grasp of Luo traditional practices and as well a staunch Christian – catechist – inspired his conversational tone in describing everyday life in a rustic, African set up, in this anthology.
Eco Africa: An Anthology of Poems
Eco Africa: An Anthology of Poems is a magnificent collection of poems from across the African continent (Eastern, Western, Central, and Southern Africa) with various contributions from some African poets in Diaspora. There are poems on nature such as its beauty and clean air, on potential consequences of climate change, notably global warming, and the potential devastating effects of drought, floods and hunger. There is uncertainty, and hence fear and hope. The verses shed streaks of light on the contemporary concerns about pollution, its impacts on humanity and the earth’s flora and fauna. However, even with the gloom and doom, the artists offer pointers to remedies! Will humanity hearken?
Loaded with vivid descriptions, suspense, and free expression, the works herein make it hard for the reader to place the book down even after reading the last word!
What Others Say
“The poems have an appealing and timely message on matters of the environment.” – Dr. Chris Okemwa, Kisii University
The Merchant of Venice by William Sha...
The Merchant of Venice is an intriguing drama of love, greed, and revenge. At its heart, the play contrasts the characters of the maddened and vengeful Shylock, a Venetian moneylender, with the gracious, level-headed Portia, a wealthy young woman besieged by suitors. At the play's climax, Shylock insists on the enforcement of a binding contract that will cost the life of the merchant Antonio — inciting Portia to mount a memorable defense.
In this richly plotted drama, Shylock, whom Shakespeare endowed with all of the depth and vitality of his greatest characters, is not alone in his villainy. In scene after scene, a large cast of ambitious and scheming characters demonstrates that honesty is a quality often strained where matters of love and money are concerned.
The gravity and suspense of the play's central plot, together with its romance, have made The Merchant of Venice a favorite of audiences, and one of the most studied and performed of Shakespeare's plays. It is reprinted here from an authoritative text, complete with explanatory footnotes.
Time, Chance and Potential by Edward ...
Slaves, Priests and Kings by Kimari K...
What did the discovery of King Tut's Tomb and Rossetta Stone mean for Egypt?
This book is about everyday solutions to complex social problems.
- How do you motivate students to try and solve real world problems? Or workers to self supervise.
- How do you foster the spirit of innovation amongst barely literate rural folk
- Why are some communities social economically more dominant than others.
- The answers, though not obvious, are deceptively apparent.
This Red Land: A novel
“I was moved by the character’s struggle to find meaning in their lives. So sorry to see it end! I couldn’t put it down. It is a story told with great imagination and sensitivity. The descriptions of New York, Kenya and Japan come alive.” - Mel Haber, business writing teacher
“This novel expertly transports the readers across continents, decades and cultures. The characters’ lives are nicely interwoven in this real-world novel.” - Rich Green, retired professor of comparative literature.
“In this moving sequel to his novels Malaika, Salted With Fire, and Kwamboka’s Inquiry, Dobrin weaves a riveting, tragic tale bridging the lives of his richly developed characters in New York and Kenya across decades marked by violent political and social upheavals. From the red soils of Kenya, to the red of blood spilled, to the red of political ideology, This Red Land presents timeless themes of love, struggle, and yearning for justice in a carefully crafted, wise, and deeply human work of richly detailed historical fiction.” - Colleen Eren, sociologist.
Enriching. Enjoyably Complex. Bravo!
“Vivid characters leading parallel lives with vastly different experiences and perceptions of the world are expertly interweaved by the author to briefly intercept in an unexpected and powerful way amid rich cultural, political and historical texture. This isn’t just one captivating story - but instead three! Brilliant surprise endings leave sense of something to grieve, but also to imagine and hope for.” - Jack Beder, Vice-President of Consumer Research Company
The Trial of the GODS
The Trial of the Gods is the story of a man and his people who live in the Kalahari Desert. They believe that the land they occupy belongs to the Gods hence cannot be owned by anyone else, least of all Government. The book takes the reader through human rights Bushman activism in an environment they are considered uncivilized and stigmatized as scavengers; the wretched of earth, in the words of Franz Fanon.
As the government plans relocation and integration of Bushmen into "mainstream society" one man, Jay, and his people vehemently resist. It becomes a quest for justice, truth and conservation. They cannot listen to anyone, or get instructions from the Government, lawyers or judges. Only instructions from the Gods will do as to whether they should embrace the "dangerous" world of development and civilization. It becomes a matter of life and death as the man and his people realize that the Gods alone cannot help fight one of the richest governments in Africa. In the process their claims and demands reverberate across the land and the world, touching many human rights organizations and supporters.
Will they manage to fight a government financed by the most precious diamonds in the world?
Here is what others say:
"The Trial of the Gods is a gripping tale of conflict between modernity and tradition, old and new conventions, conservation and human rights." - Anonymous
"The Trial of the Gods is more than just a story. It's a commentary about how determination, courage and love will ultimately defeat greed. It is definitely a must-read." - Olopeng Rabasimane, Columnist, The Botswana Gazette
Zanj of Alkebulan by Michael Thuo
Zanj(black man) of Alkebulan (formerly Africa) is a fast-paced treatise on Africa, as conceptualized in the magical realm.
The time capsule explodes and events since antiquity unfurl: pre-colonial Africa, colonial era and neo-colonialism.
The tale is a wrap up of a continent in perpetual turmoil ( loss of identity, slave trade, scramble and partition, corruption and power struggle, to name a few)…and a glimpse of a resolution, as seen through the lens of an African.
Abagusii Wisdom Revisited: Proverbs i...
Abagusii Wisdom Revisited is a collection of proverbs and metaphors in Ekegusii, one of the forty one languages spoken in Kenya. It includes naming conventions in the calendar, the traditional homestead, cattle (which were a symbol of wealth in traditional Gusii society), currency and traditional brew. The book captures wisdom told over generations and observations intertwined with profound meaning.
In order to avail the work to a wider audience than Ekegusii readers and speakers, the author has attempted to put the necessary context, giving the English equivalent and, in some cases, using story-lines to establish the meaning. Here is an example:
Abanda 'mbairokaine; Onchong’a agatama ekworo Kimaiga kayebwate:
The rich revere/fear one another as in the case of Onchong’a who fled on noticing Kimaiga’s cloak.
Storyline: Once there were two rich men who unknowingly met at the home of a beautiful girl, whom they both intended to woo. Mr. Onchong’a reported earlier. However, when Mr. Kimaiga also arrived for the same purpose, Mr. Onchonga, who was less wealthy, stealthily walked away without ado.
Taboos of Abagusii of Kenya
Emegiro y’Abagusii ba Kenya (Taboos of Abagusii of Kenya) documents taboos of the Abagusii and the role the taboos played, and continue to play, in that society. Authors assert that the taboos regulated society in all dimensions. A person breaking a taboo would face censure and/or punishment unless s/he was cleansed.
Taboos have vital effect on a society’s conduct. They regulate relations and determine how the society utilizes its resources, among other things. They also protect society from dangerous persons such as criminals.
Taboos demand obedience and are associated with rituals; they impose specific or restrictive behaviour, usually directed at avoiding danger, be it imminent or long-term.
As captured in this book, taboos are social constitutions for, together with cultural laws, they regulate community conduct.
Some taboos documented here may not be relevant today. However, they capture the context and hence the society of the time. They are of historical significance, many threads of which exist today.
The Armageddon and Other Stories
The unpredictable weather patterns in Africa, the rise of earth's surface temperature, the melting of polar ice caps, rising of sea levels and the blazing wildfires in the Americas and Australia call for urgent action to conserve Mother Nature or risk Armageddon, the final destruction of the planet. This is the subject that runs through this compilation of stories to reiterate Wangari Maathai's assertion that the future of the planet concerns all of us and we should do what we can to protect it. It is the intention of debut and established authors of this anthology to perpetuate Maathai's legacy to avert Mother
Natures' vengeance against humanity. The Armageddon and Other Stories, therefore, breaks away from conventional social and political themes on the African literary scene to depict the demerits of deforestation, pollution, logging, the relegation of climate change, and other concerns of ecocriticism. At the crux of the anthology is the argument that the tendency to use financial profits to measure the success of commercial institutions without considering their role in environmental conservation is misleading. - Andrew Nyongesa.
Air, water, and earth are the basic amenities of life. Humans have constantly tampered with nature. Cyclical processes that nature has designed for resource conservation are fragrantly interfered with. As a result, the threat to life has been increased due to human activities in the environment. Some of these are air, water, and noise pollution; deforestation, blind industrialization, over-population; waste disposal, climate change, global warming, the greenhouse effect, and the imbalance established in the biosphere. The stories herein serve to spread environmental awareness in our society as well as in our daily routine life. It is necessary to save and protect our environment. - John Mugubi.
Say My Name and Other African Stories...
Cultural difference elicits both essentialist and hybrid conversations from diverse fields, particularly the humanities and social sciences. For Africa, essentialist voices, for instance, underscore the need to reject Western culture and return to the African ways of the past. In the 1956 conference of Black Writers, essentialists were represented by Aime Cessaire. In their view, the great Africa could only be founded on its past cultural ways.
Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Obi Wale bolster Cessaire’s proposition in their defence of African languages with respect to the writing of African literature. In their opinion, writing African literature in European languages in tantamount to transmitting European values. Frantz Fanon, on the other hand, contented that Africa can only succeed through a mix of Western and African ways.
Referring to Fanon, Homi Bhabha associates essentialist discourses with the politics of polarity. For him, the return to traditional culture is a recipe for cultural othering that could threaten national aspirations.
It is in the backdrop of these divergent conversations that the stories in Say my Name and Other African Stories from Home and Away we selected. While Joy Chenyenyozi, Yvonne Wamuyu, Maurice Simbili, Virginia Asenath and James Nderitu stand for a cultural mix of what seems inevitable in Africa, Denis Waswa, Muruli Muhande, Imali Abala and Ann Namatasi Lutomia are concerned with representation of Africa’s lost past. Using autobiographical style, the authors capture among other things, the physical environment, childhood activities, initiation rites, parenting styles, dances, food, cherished values and other aspects that show the cultural diversity of the Kenyan populace.
Korondo-Panic: A Satirized Diary of a...
“Articles in this book overflow with humour and thought provoking jokes. The way Araka twists and plays around with names of public figures, their actions and inactions, and blends it with the joys and disappointments of ‘ordinary’ citizens is on another level. The style is readable and appealing. The articles revolve around the novel Coronavirus disease. This is a time to be told and retold to present and future generations.” - Rose Kong’ani Keya, Book Editor and Teacher
“The author has banked on wordplay to offer his contribution in chronicling a critical moment in our lives when COVID-19 threw the world into panic and confusion. The book tells of humanity’s inadequacies, hits and misses. Through his trademark satire, Araka shows that as human beings, we deserve better and can do better even when caught up in difficulties. - Edna, Gutenbergschule, Leipzig
“Many occurrences happen in everyday life and can go unnoticed despite being significant. Araka is a gifted writer that makes such occurrences memorable through satire and humour. The themes in the articles including: political manipulations, exploitation, corruption, family relations, hypocrisy, traditions, and modern technology are well intertwined in the writer’s rich narrative style with vivid descriptions that capture the reader to achieve reading this collection in the shortest time possible. I recommend this collection to readers that wish to relive occurrences in their lives and surroundings in a laughable way.” - George Onkundi, Principal, Nyamira School.
About the Author: Joshua Nyangau Araka is a journalist, creative writer and biographer. His other published works include: Peppered Path, Chronicles of the Idler-Volume One, and Beaten Odds, a Biography of Stephen Mabea.
Mwendo Wenye Busara
Baada ya kuchinjwa, matumbo hukaguliwa na iwapo hakuna ishara yoyote ya ugonjwa, sherehe hutangazwa kuwa njema. Iwapo kondoo atapatikana na ishara ya ugonjwa, hii ikiwa nadra kwa kuwa umakinifu uliwekwa unapochaguliwa, mwingine hutakaswa na kuchinjwa tena. Rafiki zake bwana harusi wanapopeana habari njema, wazazi na wale kina mama wa ubatizo hunyunyiza maziwa na pombe…
*
Riwaya hii ni ya kihistoria ya jamii ya Wanandi. Inamulika masuala ainati ya asili katika utamaduni na mila zao. Namna jamii ya Wanandi ilivyojisuka na kujitawala katika uongozi, imani na matumaini katika maisha yao na majukumu yao katika kujikidhia matakwa ya kimsingi katika maisha. Riwaya hii ni mfano bora wa kazi zinazosimulia utamaduni wa Mwafrika na mfumo wa kujikuza na mielekeo ya maisha.
Najivunia Kuwa Mnandi Na Ishamel Rono...
Baada ya kuchinjwa, matumbo hukaguliwa na iwapo hakuna ishara yoyote ya ugonjwa, sherehe hutangazwa kuwa njema. Iwapo kondoo atapatikana na ishara ya ugonjwa, hii ikiwa nadra kwa kuwa umakinifu uliwekwa unapochaguliwa, mwingine hutakaswa na kuchinjwa tena. Rafiki zake bwana harusi wanapopeana habari njema, wazazi na wale kina mama wa ubatizo hunyunyiza maziwa na pombe…
*
Riwaya hii ni ya kihistoria ya jamii ya Wanandi. Inamulika masuala ainati ya asili katika utamaduni na mila zao. Namna jamii ya Wanandi ilivyojisuka na kujitawala katika uongozi, imani na matumaini katika maisha yao na majukumu yao katika kujikidhia matakwa ya kimsingi katika maisha. Riwaya hii ni mfano bora wa kazi zinazosimulia utamaduni wa Mwafrika na mfumo wa kujikuza na mielekeo ya maisha.
Dau lazama na Kulei G. Serem
Dau Lazama inatoa picha halisi ya mambo yanayoendelea katika jamii hususan katika bara la Afrika. Walalahoi katika taifa la Ngomeni wanapitia madhila yasiyo na kifani kutoka kwa walio na mamlaka ya dola. Ni bayana kwamba uongozi katika taifa hili ni wa kiimla.
Tembo anatumia mbinu kali kuwakaandamiza wapinzani wa sera zake. Vilevile pana asasi muhimu za jamii kama vile dini, zinazofaa kuyanyosha maadili katika jamii ila sivyo katika taifa la Ngomeni: Mchungaji Kombo anauunga mkono ukoloni mamboleo na kushirikiana nao.
Si hayo tu, siri kubwa inayozingira maisha ya kijana Bahati kuihusu usuli na hatima yake ya maisha inateka bakunja nadhari ya msomaji.
From The Cradle To The Cradle By Tony...
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Oloo and Aloo were guided to go forth and fill the earth, giving rise to our diversity as brothers and sisters in the world today.
Many generations later, jo luwo rech, better known as the people who follow fish, found themselves at Nam Lolwe - Lake Victoria, as the source of this abundant supply.
This book traces the historical journey of the Luo from the Garden of Eden to the land of Kush and describes the life of a member of the community from birth to rebirth in the circle of life.
Inspired by stories from the author’s grandmother, it is a representation of her answers to his many questions on the ways of his forefathers and enables the descendants of Kush to understand how they found themselves where they are and the ancestors they have in common with the Dinka, Maasai, Kalenjin, Samburu, and Turkana.
Waridi Tamthilia Na Kyelanzi Matei
Chomz: A Novella by Nanu (No:1 Umbea ...
Mombaaz is known for two things: supernatural creatures called yovulis that live among humans and, Umbea – gossip. One of them is bound to bewitch you.
Chomz is a fantasy fiction novella about Angie, a Nairobian who comes to Mombaaz after her family’s fall into chaos following her father’s tragic death. Angie, determined that becoming an influencer will make her life easier, finds a surprisingly cheap AirBnb in Old Town, overlooking the channel.
The AirBnb rumored to be built by Kitwana, a long-forgotten mythological figure, is filled with antiques as perfect as the day they were made and a grande wall-length mirror. Angie’s curiosity is piqued when the local street food vendor, Mheshimiwa Fatma, warns her against the AirBnB’s mysterious past and strange happenings.
Angie is intrigued but disbelieving of Mheshimiwa Fatma’s warnings until she meets Chomz, the talking goat and host of the AirBnb, appears offering a fantastical adventure through history, revealing Kitwana’s history and an unforgivable curse that killed his whole family. Chomz offers Angie a gift from Kitwana’s private collection. The only catch, she needs to enter the grande mirror, into a pocket world to pick it.
Angie quickly finds herself entangled in Kitwana’s past as she comes face to face with creatures and myths that were long believed to be dead, and a curse that threatens to steal her soul.
