Secular Stories
“Spare a thought for secularism. One month into the life of The Satanic Verses, only two states anywhere in the world had taken decisive action against the book and they had done so purely for secular reasons” – Achal Prabhala unravels multiple strands of irony swathed around this most irreverent book. In the […]
The New Reading
By Vivek Narayanan Lately, I’ve had trouble sleeping at night: full of strange unnameable anxieties, my head crowded with voices, disjointed thoughts, fragments of paragraphs, half-phrases. Trying to understand where this is coming from, I read from bits and pieces of writers, who themselves have written essays that feel like bits of blog posts and […]
Waiting for Wame
By Elnathan John It is June 20. I am in pain. The surgery was a success but I hate these crutches; hate the lingering pain around my right ankle, the heaviness in my arms and shoulders. The doctor gave me Tramadol to ease my pain – one in the morning, one in the evening. Ten days. Not […]
Authority Stealing in Kenya
In pursuit of some scriptwriter talent, Billy Kahora discovers that academic mantras, conservative world views and hand-me down observations stunt a rendering of the true grit that must be lived to be imagined in a Nairobi noir. The cinema like the detective story, makes it possible to experience without danger all the excitement, passion and […]
Under the Caine Bridge
by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire 2000 There are two rivers of Literature, so-called mainstream Literature (Euro-American), and the Other Literature (including African Literature), named after their histories. They come from Europe and America and the rest of the world, from two different histories. They come from swathes and swathes of land in countries with different names, […]