I was pleasantly surprised to feel quite so at ease in London on my recent trip there for the Africa Writes festival. I’m quite the unlucky traveller who always returns with a fun tale from the road (read about misadventures in Garissa and Zanzibar). While I did end up losing my phone on the Uber […]
Travel
Dial-a-delivery (of good news)
Planning a festival can be a daunting task and ours has been nearly two years in the making. The Jalada Literary and Arts Festival kicked off on March 3rd and ran to March 31st with visits to five countries in-between; Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and DRC. It was essentially a festival on wheels, the first […]
Remembering the railway
I wore a red t-shirt and green and white shorts on my first trip to Mombasa by rail. This memory is clear, as is that of my father strapping in the security harness as I settled in to sleep on the top bunker in our compartment. In the 1990s, it was a special thing to […]
Ake 2015: Engaging the Fringe and Other Stories
I’ve always enjoyed solving problems and festivals flare up with so many little editorial and production fires that for some reason I really like putting out. I’ve been worked in and around literary festivals for the last eight years. With Storymoja alone I’ve happily bobbed around as a volunteer handing out programmes, worked as a […]
Waiting for Godot: A Visa Story
Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play was first staged in 1953. “Waiting for Godot” had two characters; Vladimir and Estragon wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. I haven’t travelled across the continent or abroad as much I’d like to so perhaps I’m a little spoilt. Every visa application I have ever […]
Son of a Tiger
He was facing the stage, arms akimbo with perspiration gradually gluing a purple polo shirt to his back. Oblivious to the hordes of spectators in the cavernous warehouse, the light skinned man bobbed his head and snapped his fingers to the band’s high-energy polyrhythmic melody. Afrobeat prince, Femi Kuti had wandered among the mortals and […]