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Memories we lost and other stories by...
This anthology brings together a variety of short stories from Africa and parts of the world. A rigorous and informed selection has ensured that it combines the confidence of The classic's with the freshness that contemporary writers bring to their craft.
This collection is a grain-store of memories that seek to entertain, provoke, empower and educate. The themes are s wide ranging as the authors' backgrounds but they share a common belief — enhancing values and integrity in today's society in an effort to preserve human and social dignity.'
The short story is probably the world's secret weapon in the way that the oral culture is interwoven into the written text, to be enjoyed for education as well as a good read.
Kenya: Through My Fathers Eyes by Sal...
Brief Summary
A limited edition coffee table book featuring the photography of legendary photo-journalist Mohamed "MO" Amin. Only 2,000 copies will ever be printed and each copy is numbered and signed and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. The book is the first historical book in the world to incorporate Augmented Reality** and features 12 videos within the pages of the book
• KENYA: Through My Father's Eyes
• A coffee table book featuring the photography of legendary photo-journalist Mohamed "MO" Amin
• Features 12 videos within the pages of the book
• Get the book autographed and personalized to you by the author. You will do this by indicating the same on the order comment section or making a follow-up email to us.
• Part of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) to promote leadership on the Continent
** The Augmented Reality videos in this book can be viewed through the HP Reveal App
Step 1: Download the FREE App "HP Reveal" on your Smart Device.
Step 2. Launch the App
Step 3: Press the BLUE Button and Point your device at the cover image of this book to enjoy a rich video content experience. The onscreen cover on this page works as well. Give it a try.
The Cannabis Story The Health Wealth ...
The Cannabis Story is a thought provoking book that reveals the paradox of a pure cannabis plant strain (Kilimanjaro Sativa) reputed as the pinnacle of African Sativa strains. This strain is presently at the center of a lucrative international seed trade in what can only be aptly described as another classical case of Bio-Piracy.
Classified as illegal in its host country, Kenya and majorly regarded as a taboo topic, the book explores the potential economic gains that can be realized from the cannabis plant within a regulated environment.
Aside from the issue of economic gains, this book unpacks in an easy to read language, the origin, history and science of cannabis, its vast medicinal benefits and the prohibition journey. It gives a global perspective on decriminalization and legalization trends and the existing international treaty framework currently facing much tension in consequence of the imminent "weed rush”.
Written for the first time from the perspective of an African legal practitioner, the content will definitely hone the reader’s ability to think more critically on issues involving cannabis likely to have far greater ramifications on a people’s social economic development than previously imagined.
Finally, The Cannabis Story offers valuable insights on the foreseeable paths of a future legal regime for the development of a cannabis grow and manufacturing industry in Kenya. At the end of the read, you can only be confronted with the inevitable question.
Is cannabis the bane of our problems or does it hold the promise of a great future?
Seasons of Hope by David Musila
A teacher, a politician, an administrator, above all a gentle human being who focused on the best for his country, Honorable David Musila, a former senator, has been a dedicated Kenyan throughout his life and continues to be so.
The autobiography, Seasons of Hope – Memoirs of David Musila, is a book full of hopes; it has a capacity to restore faith. An amazingly inspirational story of a person who has encountered enormous odds, heartbreaking challenges, pitfalls, intrigues, disappointments, betrayals, never-ending friendships, forever lessons, key decisions, eye-openers. Musila has seen the darkest hours of his country, and polished his leadership skills over the years.
A young administrator of the age when Kenya gained independence, the times when Kenya was seeing a sunrise, he gained experience and stature from the ranks of District Officer to Provincial Commissioner. It was a critical time for the country, with the history being rewritten, colonial settlers were in retreat, in fear, in anger, in disbelief, for indigenous Kenyans were in charge.
The book delves deep into his extraordinary life, from his birth in a colonial Kenya to his studies in the USA to his starting to serve the country and cuts across the reign of four Presidents. While writing his memoir, Musila has shown utmost honesty, and has often talked of things that were talked of only in hush-hush voices or rather never talked of!
Musila's first assignment was to address the thorny issue of land and resettlement in the independent Kenya, which he performed so well that many new challenges were confidently thrown at him, which he gracefully accepted. Alert, observant, keen, good listener, record maintaining, he learnt all that well, but politics is all together a different set of challenge, which becomes disheartening at times.
While he already the best upbringing behind him, he also earned himself the best mentors, combining the two made many people jealous even as several tried to pull him down. Land adjudication and resettlement; peace-making with the then ruling party, KANU; unabashedly serving Kenyans in various capacities, have been few of the highlights of his carrier.
Beyond everything, Musila went on to perform every duty well; as a human, a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a Public Administrator, a leader, peace makers. With David Musila Foundation, he has started working against the grassroot of all issues... lack of education and support to those who really need it to understand their needs towards growth.
Imperial Reckoning The Untold Story o...
Brief Summary
Britain fought in the Second World War to save the world from fascism. But just a few years after the defeat of Hitler came the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya - a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population of one-and-a half-million - to hold them in camps or confine them in villages ringed with barbed wire - and to portray them as sub-human savages.
From 1952 until the end of the war in 1960 tens of thousands of detainees - and possibly a hundred thousand or more - died from the combined effects of exhaustion, disease, starvation and systemic physical brutality. Until now these events have remained untold, largely because the British government in Kenya destroyed most of its files. For the last eight years Caroline Elkins has conducted exhaustive research to piece together the story, unearthing reams of documents and interviewing several hundred Kikuyu survivors.
Britain's Gulag reveals what happened inside Kenya's detention camps, as well as the efforts to conceal the truth. Now, for the first time, we can understand the full savagery of the Mau Mau war and the ruthless determination with which Britain sought to control its empire.
ISBN:9780805080018
Author: Caroline Elkins
The 5th Columnist a Legendary Journal...
To many, Philip Ochieng is that proud atheist and relentless social critic with unmatched grasp of the English language in the region. To others, though, he is undoubtedly a media giant and a journalist of great repute.
Having served in various capacities in the media industry, Ochieng has earned both praise and condemnation from not just his readers but also his employers, colleagues and the powers that be Carried within these pages of The Fifth Columnist is the story of Ochieng's life -education, work, social Life, beliefs - as told through interviews with the career journalist, his family, friends, neighbors and workmates.
And from his writings and travels.
Gardening in Eastern Africa by Kenya ...
This is a practical guide book to gardening in the Eastern Africa region.
This practical guide to gardening in Eastern African region covers topics ranging from growing fruit and vegetables (including many local species) and gardening with indigenous plants, to ideas for designing your garden, and what to grow if you live in an apartment.
It contains many drawings and diagrams as well as nearly one thousand full color photographs.
The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo ...
Brief Summary
From the award-winning author of Dust comes a vibrant, stunning coming-of-age novel about a young woman struggling to find her place in a vast world--a poignant exploration of fate, mortality, love, and loss.
On the island of Pate, off the coast of Kenya, lives solitary, stubborn Ayaana and her mother, Munira. When a sailor named Muhidin, also an outsider, enters their lives, Ayaana finds something she has never had before: a father. But as Ayaana grows into adulthood, forces of nature and history begin to reshape her life and the island itself--from a taciturn visitor with a murky past to a sanctuary-seeking religious extremist, from dragonflies to a tsunami, from black-clad kidnappers to cultural emissaries from China.
Ayaana ends up embarking on a dramatic ship's journey to the Far East, where she will discover friends and enemies; be seduced by the charming but unreliable scion of a powerful Turkish business family; reclaim her devotion to the sea; and come to find her own tenuous place amid a landscape of beauty and violence and surprising joy.
Told with a glorious lyricism and an unerring sense of compassion, The Dragonfly Sea is a transcendent story of adventure, fraught choices, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world.
From Our Mothers Hearths Bukusu Folkt...
This collection of Bukusu folktales and proverbs provides a cultural heritage. The prologue includes a brief history and gender politics within the community. Earlier historical accounts draw heavily on oral narratives and legends. "Bukusu" is both a eulogist and descriptive term.
The label of the Bukusu as the lirango liejofu [thigh of the elephant] establishes the cultural link between Basilikwa, Banabayi, Bamalaba, Baneala and Bakikaki sub-ethnic groups in Kenya. It also demonstrates the evolution of a plurality of cultural elements to a more homogenous heritage.
Overall, Bukusu folktales portray male protagonists as rational, courageous, visionary, protective, and possessing inordinate power, even over death. Tales centered on women regardless of merit typically omit (adult) male presence. When females excel it is in persona viri, failing to undermine the patriarchal structure. The discussion also recognizes the complicity of women as primary storytellers and socializing agents in reinforcing sexism.
As the "language of the culturally wise," proverbs function as cautionary injunctions with children and diplomatic chastisement or demonstration of eloquence among adults. The command of cultural mores and lores as well as articulation is an indispensable skill at public forums that feature tact and language sophistication. That proverbs reflect daily experience, speculation and regular common sense augments the legitimacy. They are concise, simple, and easy to recall, utilizing familiar terms and phrases--about dances, rain, drinking, grazing, cooking pots, birds, beauty, parents, bulls, and kinship among others.
Of pawns and players by Kinyanjui Kom...
Kinyanjui Kombani’s newest novel Of Pawns and Players is now available for pre-order. This is the third novel from the Nairobi, Kenya based author popularly known as the "banker who writes”.
Kinyanjui Kombani is a Kenyan novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, and literature activist. He burst onto the scene in 2004 with his debut novel The Last Villains of Molo one of the few pieces of art that have been produced about Kenya’s first post-election crisis in 1991. We loved it.
He followed in 2013 with Den of Inequities a book that follows a killer gang in Nairobi that we also loved.
Apart from fiction for adults, he wrote two books for children in 2007 Wangari Maathai: Mother of Trees a biography of Kenya’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai and We Can Be Friends: Theme, Spread of HIV/AIDS. He also wrote a Young Adult book called Finding Columbia which won the Burt Award for Young Adult Literature in Accra, Ghana last year.
The author’s new novel Of Pawns and Players tackles the underground world of betting in the simple and humorous narrative style that has made him a household name in contemporary fiction.
The Journey Within by Dinesh Patel
This book represents one photographer’s effort to share his personal perspective of Africa’s wildlife heritage. Drawing on his vast collection of photographs from hundreds of safaris in Eastern Africa over the past five decades, Dinesh Patel has successfully made the African safari universally accessible.
What distinguishes the book from the myriad others are two striking features. First, is its simplicity and purity the wildlife photography in the book is uncomplicated and pure, capturing snapshots of the wild as it is intended to be, devoid of human factors.
Second, building on this simplicity, unfettered with commentary, the photographer has successfully created a world that gives the reader an experience of being there, accompanying the photographer as he moves on his journey. Whether these photographs are viewed with awe or admired for their majesty, they convey an important message.
The African wilderness is in rapid retreat. Too many of the creatures exhibited here are on the lamentable list of endangered species and face a bleak future. So the challenge ahead is serious and the task difficult but essential. Africa needs a future that befits its unique place in the grandeur of nature. By nurturing these natural jewels and by playing to its strength sits unique and spectacular wild legacy Africa must become prosperous by preserving its heritage.
It is the essential duty of the wildlife photographer to spread this message by conveying the spectacle and magnificence of Africa’s wild wonders. Dinesh Patel has accomplished this task with distinction.
Wisdom of the Elders Personal Reflect...
"'Wisdom of the elders' presents conversations with over 70 elders of diverse background, education level, race and gender. One is none other than immediate former President Emilio Mwai Kibaki. Another is the widow of former freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi, while another is the grandmother of President Barrack Hussein.
Others are normal Kenyans living in villages, with no claim to fame or stature.
However, all those profiled have lived three score ten years and more and in the words of the Bible, have reached the age of wisdom.
Discussing how life was then and how it is today, their disparate views will inform and resonate as they provide a veritable history lesson."--Dust jacket flap.
Journey of a Lifetime Pilgrimage to M...
This exquisitely beautiful series of books portrays the cultures, landscapes, fauna, flora and history of an individual country with over 150 stunning photographs and well-written and knowledgeable text.
Lavishly illustrated, this special pictorial record -- with lucid and absorbing text -- of the pilgrimage known to Muslims as the Hajj brilliantly catches the spirit and devotion of one of the world's great religious experiences.
For pilgrims this book will be an enduring reminder of that experience. For non-Muslims it stands as a moving documentary of a testament to faith.
We Came in Dhows by Cynthia Salvadori...
Brief Summary
From the introduction: "This volume has been designed as a companion to Through Open Doors: A View of Asian Cultures in Kenya.
Although that book describes the historical background of the various Asian communities in Kenya, it has little information about individual people. This book is all about people."
Give me my Mountain By Esther Muchemi
Brief Summary
The story behind Esther’s success
Esther Muchemi’s efforts to set up one of Kenya’s most successful businesses has seen her nominated and won several business awards across the continent as well as across the globe.
Esther Muchemi is one of the most successful businesswomen in Kenya. Her journey to the top started some 18 years ago when she founded Samchi Telecom to sell airtime as the mobile revolution was just about to sweep the country in 2000.
Samchi Telecom was first honoured as the top M-Pesa agent by Safaricom in 2009. The company has severally been ranked as top airtime dealer for Safaricom in subsequent years.
It’s also important to note that Samchi was the pioneer M-Pesa dealer when the mobile money was invented. M-Pesa was piloted at Samchi for six months before it was rolled out. Esther Muchemi was the first to transact with M-Pesa in Kenya holding the till number 0001.
Coming of Age Strides in African Publ...
The sixteen chapters in this book form a Festschrift in honour of Henry Chakava, the distinguished Kenyan publisher. With a Forward by Tanzanian publisher Walter Bgoya , his long-time collaborator in furthering the causes of independent African publishing, the topics cover the full range of issues in which he has been central over more than forty years.
His notable achievements include the first local buy-out of a British multinational publishing house, being one of the founders of African Books Collective and the African Publishers' Network, and participation in international counsels such as the Bellagio Publishing Network.
Amongst the contributors are prominent Kenyan authors Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Simon Gikandi and Micere Githae Mugo; Kenyan colleagues from the book trade world; close collaborators in Uganda and Nigeria, and some international colleagues.
The greatest range of the contributors are from within Africa. There are subject specific chapters on such issues as training, copyright, publishing in the digital age, and an overview of publishing at Codesria including the vexed issue of marginalisation of African language publishing.
Kenda Muiyuru Rugano rwa Gikuyu na Mu...
"I do not want to reveal too much, but all I can say is that it's perhaps one of the most experimental creative works that Ngugi has written,” Mr Kamau added.
Kenda Muiyuru (a full nine) is often mentioned in reference to the daughters of Gikuyu and Mumbi, the mythical first family that is believed to have given rise to the Gikuyu community.
Dash before Dusk: A Slave Descendants...
Brief Summary
Dash before Dusk: A slave descendant's journey in freedom is an account of the life and times of Joe Khamisi, a Kenyan slave descendant whose ancestors were taken captive by Arab traders from Nyasaland and Tanganyika, rescued at sea by the British, and settled at Rabai, a slave encampment along the East African coast.
Khamisi, a former journalist, diplomat and politician, narrates the significant contributions former slaves and their descendants made in the transformation of Kenya into an independent state and their continuing struggle for recognition.
Looters and Grabbers by Joe Khamisi
This book is about unbridled corruption, bribery and scandalous financial skullduggery in one of Africa's most promising countries, Kenya.
It is a narrative of money-laundering, mega scandals, and international wheeler-dealing, and describes how Mafia-like lobbyists have been devouring the country's resources with blatant impunity over four regimes since independence in 1963.
It is an important resource for historians, students, researchers, social and political scientists, non-governmental organizations, development and anti-corruption agencies.
Digital Democracy Analogue Politics H...
From the upheavals of recent national elections to the success of the #MyDressMyChoice feminist movement, digital platforms have already had a dramatic impact on political life in Kenya – one of the most electronically advanced countries in Africa.
While the impact of the Digital Age on Western politics has been extensively debated, there is still little appreciation of how it has been felt in developing countries such as Kenya, where Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other online platforms are increasingly a part of everyday life.
Written by a respected Kenyan activist and researcher at the forefront of political online struggles, this book presents a unique contribution to the debate on digital democracy. For traditionally marginalised groups, particularly women and people with disabilities, digital spaces have allowed Kenyans to build new communities which transcend old ethnic and gender divisions. But the picture is far from wholly positive.
Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics explores the drastic efforts being made by elites to contain online activism, as well as how ‘fake news’, a failed digital vote-counting system and the incumbent president's recruitment of Cambridge Analytica contributed to tensions around the 2017 elections.
Reframing digital democracy from the African perspective, Nyabola’s ground-breaking work opens up new ways of understanding our current global online era.
