It is a rather languid and tepid afternoon in Nairobi. A slow Saturday in the city under the sun, as evidenced by few cars and even fewer pedestrians on both Uhuru Highway and University Way.
The mood is starkly different, however, inside Alliance Francaişe, which is just a few paces from Uhuru Highway on Utalii Lane off University Way. There is music and art as a book is launched in front of an ebullient and overly enthusiastic youthful crowd that has packed Alliance’s Mediatheque library to the brim and spilled over. And just like that, the new literary gangsters in town announce their arrival.
Elsewhere, in African Binguni, a heaven where African ancestors go to die, according to Binyavanga in his fictional short story Binguni!, Binyavanga Wainaina, barefoot, clad in a colourful boubou with a cold Tusker in one hand and a smouldering cigarette on the other, looks on. He puts his beer down, rubs his belly with sheer satisfaction, and a wry smile escapes his mouth. “They have kept the dream alive,” he smugly says before turning to the rest of the ancestors for affirmation.
This was slightly two-and-a-half months ago, on April 1.
Qwani’s story, however, did not begin then. Keith Ang’ana, the collective’s executive director, says Qwani’s story began eight months earlier, when he, while on an expedition to discover new blogs by youthful Kenyans, stumbled on a plethora of sites. He was amazed at the sheer number of young, brilliant but undiscovered Kenyan writers like himself, and he had a light bulb moment.
Having read all the Kwani? issues and knowing too well what the juggernaut of a literary magazine had done to liberalise and open up the literary space in Kenya, Ang’ana decided to dial a phone number that he had found on Kwani?’s website and share his ideas with whoever would pick up. Sadly, though, the man at the other end of the line, Kwani?’s sales and distribution officer, told him it was impossible to get Kwani? to start publishing again.
But Ang’ana was undeterred. He decided to bring together other writer friends of his to deliberate on the possibility of starting their own thing. Over the next few months, a group of nine emerged, comprising Keith Ang’ana as executive director, Grace Asiro and Ann Museo as chief editors, Edwin Okeyo as copy editor, Naomi Nyakinyua and Jean Johnson as proofreaders, Mark Murimiri and Joseph Kambai as sales and distribution officers and Sinatra Chumo as the illustrator.
They moved to coalesce other young upcoming writers around themselves. It is these efforts that midwifed and birthed the book “Qwani: An Anthology”.
The eccentric yet exciting 214-page anthology is a collection of 65 pieces authored by 36 different writers. It straddles genres such as short stories, poetry, plays, music, art and film reviews, philosophy and science, and even more surprising, sheng’ literature. The book addresses themes such as love, loss, self-conflict and beauty, just to name a few, while also educating and entertaining at the same time.
For instance, in chapter 4, in a science piece titled Is teleportation possible? Keith Ang’ana tackles what is a very theoretical and technical subject with unusual verve and wit, breaking it down bit by bit so much so that it is easily comprehendible to just anybody who cares to read it.
Forward to chapter 6, in a philosophical piece titled “Meaning (less)”, Dave Nguyai delves into existential crisis, a problem all too familiar to youth who are just out of school and have just begun ‘adulting’ and are wondering what to do or make of their lives. Elsewhere in chapter 21, in a poetic piece titled In My Mind, Ryan Kiruri addresses the touchy topic of mental health; the constant battles and struggles that come with it, and the willpower and resilience it would take to overcome.
In a short play titled Africana: Fingertips on naked skin. A love letter to African adolescence, tucked in at chapter 32 of the book, Anisa Of The Sunflowers does expertly well in simulating a conversation between Gikuyu and Mumbi, the fore parents of the Agikuyu community. In it, she animates stories about love and African mythology.
The book ends with Ang’ana getting arrested in chapter 65. Writing in Sheng’, he humorously recounts his arrest and a night spent at the Central Police station.
Ang’ana confirms that the name Qwani is a direct spin-off from Kwani? as they seek to offer a wide literary space devoid of any boundaries as the nascent Kwani? had done. The group concedes that unlike when Kwani? started, the literary space in Kenya right now is more liberalised. Already, there are several literary magazines, such as down river road, Jalada and Lolwe. However, they strongly hold that Qwani is heavily about bringing youthful Kenyan writers together to tell their stories devoid of the stringent rules and structure that define literary writing in some of these literary magazines.
“If you skim through our short stories section, you will realise that most of the short stories are way shorter than what is considered standard in that genre,” says Jazmin Asiroh, Qwani’s chief editor.
“That was purely intentional because, apart from offering a space for undiscovered writers, we are also seeking out a new audience, that of the younger generation, the majority of whom have a shorter attention span. These stories are for them.”
Apart from the book, Qwani has sought to rope in other young creatives by offering them an avenue for performance at their monthly open mic sessions, which are held at the Alliance Francaişe’s mediatheque library. “The goal right now is to churn out two anthology issues yearly as well as well bring interested youth together through the open mic sessions to celebrate literature and art, thus creating some sort of literati community,” Ang’ana says.
They also seek to recruit more followers into their ‘literary cult’ and have recently embarked on a campaign to start “writing forum clubs” in as many high schools as they can reach. The aim of these clubs, says Naomi Nyakinyua, is to ensure that Qwani does not end with them. The writing forum clubs are meant to get more young folks to tell their stories and also to create a feeder system for Qwani’s masthead.
The main challenge the collective has faced thus far is funding. They have put out Qwani merchandise, such as branded T-shirts and wristbands, for sale, and it is the returns from the sales that go into funding the group’s activities.
What is evident, though, seeing as it is just a few weeks past the fourth anniversary of Binyavanga Wainaina’s (Kwani?’s founding editor) death (May 21st), is that, despite his demise, the spirit with which he and his literary comrades started a literary revolution exactly two decades ago is still alive. What’s more is that as Binyavanga continues to chug down his Tuskers in African Binguni, his soul is at peace in the knowledge that the fire that he worked tirelessly hard to fan continues to burn.