Explore the world of crime and prostitution in Nairobi, alongside the connections between criminal groups, the police, prostitutes, and the urban poor.
Born and raised on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kanja experiences a horror that shatters his innocence as a young boy, leaving scars that define his adult life in the raw reality of scavenging on Nairobi city streets. Kanja quickly learns Nairobi’s rules of survival; hardened and fierce, he earns respect and fear, becoming a “Boss” of Nairobi’s underworld.
Experience the emotional roller-coaster ride that arises from unrequited love.
This collection of poems showcases Scholastica Moraa’s creativity at its best. She expertly weaves her poems to present the full mix of love’s emotions: infatuation, commitment, frustration, bitterness, arousal and self-pity. She skilfully weaves these emotions into words, bringing to life the experience of her readers and many admirers—a poetic diary of the high moments of love as well as the depths of desperation when love grows cold and says goodbye.
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Read about the problems of housewives, office secretaries, sex workers and other women in post-independent Kenya.
After 4:30 rocketed the now renown author, David G. Maillu, to become the most widely read, controversial and humorous writer in East Africa. Using poetry, the author writes a provocative and bluntly-critical book that is also highly entertaining. The epic is set in the post-independence era of the early 1970s and craftily unravels the problems of housewives, office secretaries, sex workers, and other women with unusual frankness and remarkable clarity.
Meet Africa’s emerging writers and their stories that explore the powerful forces affecting the continent’s people and destiny.
Captive features stories by 11 emerging writers from Africa and the diaspora. The stories explore “identities that connect us, the obsessions that bewitch us, and the self-delusions that tear us apart.” Passion and apathy, creation and destruction, honesty and deception—the blurred lines between these powerful forces are fundamental to the human condition. Two Kenyan writers, Kabubu Mutua and Salma Yusuf, feature in this anthology.
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Trauma and acceptance: read the story of a neglected Kenyan girl and the multiple issues that afflict Kenyan society.
Rough Silk is a coming-of-age story of a neglected girl championed only by a man who decides to claim and cherish her as his beloved daughter. It explores the mother-daughter dynamic and defies the assumptions of ease and acceptance. Set against the backdrop of Kenya, the story transports readers on a journey through trauma and acceptance, through neglect and abandonment and covers topics like the mortality rate in Africa, domestic violence, civil war, medical tourism and the plight of refugees, the HIV pandemic of the 1990s in Kenya and the orphans it left in its wake.
Follow this story to find out authentic African traditional views on the vexing matter of bride price and the consequences of disobedience.
Imagine a fourteen-year-old prince from a war-prone tribe eloping with a king’s twelve-year-old daughter in ancient northwest Cameroon. Nangeh, the oldest daughter of savage King Bonteh, elopes with her lover Ful. It is against the law for a woman to walk away with a man and have children without a bride price. These events set the pace fora savage tale of love, betrayal, hostility, and hatred, which causes Nangeh’s downfall.
Discover the world of unmet expectations, alcoholism, cheap sex and a hand-to-mouth existence for Kenya’s lowly-paid government workers.
Jonathan Kinama, a low-level Kenya government employee, finds himself deeply entangled in the lifestyle of licentiousness and drunkenness that entraps many city residents. In Unfit for Human Consumption, we encounter David Maillu at his best; this is a story of the debauchery that everyone condemns but many are all too happy to do in the dark, the reckless living that leads men to abandon their rural families, and the brawls and risks that characterise life in downtown Nairobi and its eastern suburbs.
A detective story set in the heart of Africa, with the action incorporating drug lords, politicians, and a generous dose of love triangles.
A fancy Nairobi engagement party turns deadly. What was to be a special night for Mwende and her fiancé, Oti, takes an unexpected twist. Private investigator Wanjiru Mdaku is in a race against time to unearth the culprit and rescue Mwende, the daughter of infamous local businessman Al Capone wa County. Mdaku finds herself navigating the treacherous waters of the Lamu drug world, county mafia, political rivalries, a well-connected megachurch, and countless love triangles. Can our heroine solve this mystery?
Reactions from a young woman’s deeply-wounded heart will touch your soul.
This is a collection of poems from a young woman’s point of view: from how she has viewed love and life to how she has grown to love life. Sharpened by life’s trials and burned by life’s embers, this collection of passionately collected pieces reveals a touch of pain, survival, and raw beauty. Beautiful Mess speaks from a deeply wounded heart and how such individuals sometimes choose to wallow in that pain.
The intriguing story of a troubled marriage and the different shades of truth.
It is generally accepted that there are only two possible outcomes to the flipping of a coin—heads or tails. In reality, there is also a small possibility of the coin landing on its edge. In this book, we explore the tumultuous marriage of a middle-aged Kenyan power couple as told by different parties in their lives. On this riveting journey across the foothills of Mt. Kenya and the chaotic streets of Nairobi, the reader will learn that truth is not a universal concept, but one dependent on the person telling the story.
Feel the thrill of love in a polygamous African setting, with a Maasai moran taking charge of the romance.
This is the story of Masikonde, a Maasai moran living large in the city, a ladies’ man who loves his wife, Sinta, yet can’t stay faithful. He falls in love, again, with an unlikely candidate, Terian. Are his philanderer tendencies from cultural conditioning, or is he just an unfaithful man using culture as an excuse? Through this story, the author examines the intricacies of polygamy in a modern African setting.
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Read about the pressures faced by African immigrants to the West in their efforts to fake success rather than return home.
Esther represents the typical Kenyan immigrant with dreams of making it big in life by seeking all means to go abroad, thus escaping the excruciating poverty back home. But alas, life in the United Kingdom isn’t all rosy; she soon finds herself in a catch-22 situation whereby she hates the dirty jobs and the life she is forced to lead abroad but cannot return home. The characters may be fictional, but they depict the pressures and events that the author has witnessed first-hand in her many years abroad.
Everyone has a heritage, and for Wanjiku, her childhood memories keep coming up within her modern setting.
Everyone has a heritage, and for Wanjiku, her childhood memories keep coming up within her modern setting. In the countryside, a young Gikuyu girl, Wanjiku, helps her grandmother with daily tasks. On the streets of Nairobi, she is Catherine. But at home with Wangari, the maid, she is again Wanjiku. All grown up in boarding school, Catherine is the leader of her class. Gloriously illustrated, alive with the joie de vivre of girlhood, and based on the author’s own childhood memories, Wanjiku, Child of Mine is an ode to the heritage that walks alongside us.
Discover the ups and downs, fears and aspirations of a middle-class, working Ugandan woman in Kampala.
Discover the ups and downs, fears and aspirations of a middle-class, working Ugandan woman in Kampala. Twenty-nine-year-old Vera is desperate to meet Mr Right after several failed relationships. A high-flyer, Vera is determined to have it all: a husband, family, and an illustrious career. Then she meets Eric, a hunk corporate executive: Eric is thirty-one, single, and searching. But a secret of unimaginable magnitude that Eric has kept from Vera surfaces, threatening to destroy their otherwise perfect romance.
Everyone who’s ever fantasised about forbidden love will find company in these ten tales of the sex lives of modern Kenyan women.
Scandal, secrets, and sensuality collide in ten tales of forbidden lust that celebrate the diverse expressions of the Kenyan woman’s sexuality. A desperate housewife will do anything to reignite the flames of passion in her sexless marriage, even if it means turning to the supernatural. A bottle girl has her sights set on a powerful politician, hoping to find her ticket to a life of luxury. Love and betrayal intertwine as a happily married doctor discovers that her life is not as perfect as it appears.
Fast-paced thriller gives you three magnificent pieces for lovers of difficult detective stories.
3 Bolts from The Blue represents three unexpected things in three thriller stories. In “Just A Sleepover”, Isaac wakes up with a dead girl next to him, following a romantic sleepover. It wasn’t his house, and the girl wasn’t his, either. It’s a mystery that Detective Njagi of the DCI must solve. “We All Weep” introduces a creepy psychopath who does the unthinkable after a girl he loves betrays him. He does his best to drag a branch behind to cover his tracks, but will he out-fox Detective Njagi?
A story of secrets, betrayal, and the ultimate act of self-preservation, exploring the boundaries of love and the price for freedom.
In the bustling city of Nairobi, amidst the chaos of life, Tara finds herself ensnared in an all-consuming love affair with the enigmatic, good looking, and dangerous Joe. Drawn to his volatility, she becomes entangled in a web of passion and fear. As their tumultuous relationship reaches its breaking point, Tara learns deep and dark secrets that threaten to bury her alive; she faces a harrowing choice: to break free or succumb to the perilous allure of a man whose love is as intoxicating as it is destructive.