A Kisii University don has translated Nigerian literary classic Things Fall Apart into Gusii language.
Dr Jane Obuchi said she was idling at her Eldoret home following the Covid-19 pandemic break, when the thought of translating the book cropped up.
The book is titled Binto Mbisabererekania in Gusii.
"It was also a good way to keep the brain engaged, as a lecturer you do not want your brain to grow cobwebs," the don told the Star in Kisii.
Things Fall Apart is the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958.
It is set on an indigenous setting among the Ibo tribe in Nigeria.
Here Okwonko, a son to a lazy peasant, is caught up in the struggle to prove his manhood and succeed against all odds and break the jinx of his debt ridden father, Unoka.
He gets sucked into the struggle by his natives to adjust into to a new foreign culture of the Europeans imperialists.
He was irked the more by a public flogging as punishment of him. He sought revenge by slaughtering of an imperialist before he hanged himself.
The Kisii don has also penned seven other books most of them in Gusii.
The translated master piece- Binto Mbionchoreria- will help young community readers appreciate their local language, she told the Star.
She says the growing appreciation of foreign languages by the society's young constitutes a threat to local dialects.
Some Kenyan dialects like the Suba are already facing extinction following the intermarriage with the Luo.
Dr Obuchi encourages more writers to use African languages to ward off the extinction of Africa's rich dialects and traditions.