E-books are the future of reading and publishing

 E-books represent the market of the future for authors and publishers in Kenya.

At present, the country lacks a critical mass of book lovers with access to smart phones, tablets and e-readers. In a population of about 19 million phone users, less than 200,000 have smart phones. And of these, the vast majority does not buy books online. Those who do are more likely to buy a foreign title.

Digital Divide Data, one of the biggest players in the E-book market in Kenya, has sold five thousand titles since it launched operations in Kenya, many of them by foreign authors. That means other players have done fewer copies and cumulatively, it is likely that the country has bought less than 10,000 books online since last year.

DDD operates the e-kitabu online bookstore in collaboration with Text Book Centre and Safaricom. It also has a retail agreement with 21 other online bookstores, including Kobo and Amazon.

The company usually enters into contracts with publishers to stock their books in online stores for a commission based on actual sales. Locally, DDD sources for the books and converts them into e-pubs while TBC provides the retail platform and Safaricom the payment platform through M-Pesa. These firms, the publishers and authors have a formula for sharing the revenues.

It is likely that buyers with e-readers such as the Kindle, an Amazon gadget, or the Sony E-reader prefer to buy their e-books directly from stores such as Amazon but it is also likely that the number of books sold in the coming year will go up because DDD concluded contracts with several Kenyan publishers in July.

In recent months, novels about sex and sexual awakening have gained rising popularity across the world and many of those who read books such as Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and Bared to You by Sylvia Day, prefer to read such books through their mobile gadgets because they are discreet.

But Kenyan publishers are not churning out such titles. Indeed, the Kenyan book market is heavily tilted towards fulfilling curriculum needs for lower level students at the exclusion of the adult fiction market. The demand in this segment is filled largely by American and European authors whose books are available in online bookstores.

The other popular genre of books in the Kenyan adult readers market are self help titles. Again, this is a segment that has been overlooked by all but one mainstream publisher. Besides WordAlive, which is also licensed to sell some foreign self help and motivational titles in Kenya, no other publisher meets the demands of this segment. If anything, it is now dominated by self-published authors many of who are yet to reach the pinnacle of marketing and whose books are also not readily available online. It is, therefore, not a wonder that there are so few Kenyan titles being bought online and that the Kenyans who are buying e-books are buying foreign titles.

However, there are two things which are likely to happen in the next decade that could change this scenario. The first is that, thanks to the free primary education programme introduced in 2003, there will be 1.5 million young people leaving secondary schools in the next two to three years. These segment will most likely start buying smart phones in three to four years. Which means that in another five years, there will be a critical mass of young readers with access to smart phones and tablets. The second is that by that time, there will be a wide range of books by Kenyans available in both hard copies and digitally. The confluence of these two trends will lead to the exponential growth in the e-books market, hence my opening assertion that e-books are the next publishing frontier for Kenyan authors and publishers.

Mbugua's award winning titles, Different Colours and Terrorists of The Aberdare are available in 21 online stores including e-kitabu, Amazon and iTunes. He is also the author of Reflections on the Wisdom of Steve Jobs and most recently a poetry anthology, This Land is Our Land.

Alice Munroe gives Nobel Literature Prize acceptance speech in her house

The winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature says she was first inspired to write as a young girl after reading a tale with a sad ending and felt compelled to write one with a happy ending.
In the tale, a mermaid was trying to win the love of a prince and she went to great pains to achieve the desires of her heart.  Seeing the troubles that the mermaid went through, she decided to write a story that had happy ending.
At the time, though, she was not too concerned that her stories would be published. But with that one gesture, she embarked on a journey that this year saw her win the Nobel Prize for Literature. But because of her age (she is 82) and frail health, she was not able to travel to Stockholm to receive her prize.
In what The New Yorker said was her acceptance speech for the prize, delivered in her home in Canada, Munroe also said that as she grew older, she found that her life influenced her creative work more and more, influencing in the characters she was creating.
In its citation of her work, the Nobel Literature Prize committee described Munroe as a "master of the contemporary short story".
Below is the link for the video in which she gave her views on her writing.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/alice-munros-living-room-nobel-acceptance.html.

Photo by AFP

One giant writer to another: Obama pays tribute to Mandela

The following is the full speech given by US president Barack Obama at the memorial service of Nelson Mandela.

To Graça Machel and the Mandela family; to President Zuma and members of the government; to heads of state and government, past and present; distinguished guests - it is a singular honor to be with you today, to celebrate a life unlike any other.  To the people of South Africa - people of every race and walk of life - the world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us.  His struggle was your struggle.  His triumph was your triumph.  Your dignity and hope found expression in his life, and your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy.

It is hard to eulogize any man - to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person - their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul.  How much harder to do so for a giant of history, who moved a nation toward justice, and in the process moved billions around the world.

Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by elders of his Thembu tribe - Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century.  Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement - a movement that at its start held little prospect of success.  Like King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed, and the moral necessity of racial justice.  He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War.  Emerging from prison, without force of arms, he would - like Lincoln - hold his country together when it threatened to break apart.  Like America’s founding fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations - a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power.

Given the sweep of his life, and the adoration that he so rightly earned, it is tempting then to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men.  But Madiba himself strongly resisted such a lifeless portrait. Instead, he insisted on sharing with us his doubts and fears; his miscalculations along with his victories.  “I’m not a saint,” he said, “unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection - because he could be so full of good humor, even mischief, despite the heavy burdens he carried - that we loved him so.  He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood - a son and husband, a father and a friend.  That is why we learned so much from him; that is why we can learn from him still.  For nothing he achieved was inevitable.  In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness; persistence and faith.  He tells us what’s possible not just in the pages of dusty history books, but in our own lives as well.

Mandela showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of our ideals.  Perhaps Madiba was right that he inherited, “a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness” from his father. Certainly he shared with millions of black and colored South Africans the anger born of, “a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments…a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.”

But like other early giants of the ANC - the Sisulus and Tambos - Madiba disciplined his anger; and channeled his desire to fight into organization, and platforms, and strategies for action, so men and women could stand-up for their dignity.  Moreover, he accepted the consequences of his actions, knowing that standing up to powerful interests and injustice carries a price.  “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination,” he said at his 1964 trial.  “I’ve cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.  It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.  But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Mandela taught us the power of action, but also ideas; the importance of reason and arguments; the need to study not only those you agree with, but those who you don’t.  He understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls, or extinguished by a sniper’s bullet.  He turned his trial into an indictment of apartheid because of his eloquence and passion, but also his training as an advocate. He used decades in prison to sharpen his arguments, but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others in the movement.  And he learned the language and customs of his oppressor so that one day he might better convey to them how their own freedom depended upon his.

Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough; no matter how right, they must be chiseled into laws and institutions.  He was practical, testing his beliefs against the hard surface of circumstance and history.  On core principles he was unyielding, which is why he could rebuff offers of conditional release, reminding the Apartheid regime that, “prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”  But as he showed in painstaking negotiations to transfer power and draft new laws, he was not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal.  And because he was not only a leader of a movement, but a skillful politician, the Constitution that emerged was worthy of this multiracial democracy; true to his vision of laws that protect minority as well as majority rights, and the precious freedoms of every South African.

Finally, Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit.  There is a word in South Africa- Ubuntu - that describes his greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.  We can never know how much of this was innate in him, or how much of was shaped and burnished in a dark, solitary cell.  But we remember the gestures, large and small - introducing his jailors as honored guests at his inauguration; taking the pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS - that revealed the depth of his empathy and understanding.  He not only embodied Ubuntu; he taught millions to find that truth within themselves.  It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailor as well; to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion, generosity and truth. He changed laws, but also hearts.

For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe - Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate his heroic life.  But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or circumstance, we must ask:  how well have I applied his lessons in my own life?

It is a question I ask myself - as a man and as a President.  We know that like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation.  As was true here, it took the sacrifice of countless people - known and unknown - to see the dawn of a new day.  Michelle and I are the beneficiaries of that struggle.  But in America and South Africa, and countries around the globe, we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not done.  The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality and universal franchise may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important.  For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger, and disease; run-down schools, and few prospects for the future.  Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs; and are still persecuted for what they look like, or how they worship, or who they love.

We, too, must act on behalf of justice.  We, too, must act on behalf of peace.  There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality.  There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people.  And there are too many of us who stand on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.

The questions we face today - how to promote equality and justice; to uphold freedom and human rights; to end conflict and sectarian war - do not have easy answers.  But there were no easy answers in front of that child in Qunu.  Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done.  South Africa shows us that is true.  South Africa shows us we can change.  We can choose to live in a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes.  We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity.

We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again.  But let me say to the young people of Africa, and young people around the world - you can make his life’s work your own.  Over thirty years ago, while still a student, I learned of Mandela and the struggles in this land.  It stirred something in me.  It woke me up to my responsibilities - to others, and to myself - and set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today.  And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be better.  He speaks to what is best inside us.  After this great liberator is laid to rest; when we have returned to our cities and villages, and rejoined our daily routines, let us search then for his strength - for his largeness of spirit - somewhere inside ourselves.  And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, or our best laid plans seem beyond our reach - think of Madiba, and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of a cell:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

What a great soul it was.  We will miss him deeply.  May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela.  May God bless the people of South Africa.

US President Barack Obama is the author of Audacity of Hope and Dreams From My Father. Nelson Mandela, a former South African president and ANC leader, is author of Long Walk to Freedom.

Novella tackles problem of alcohol abuse among the youth

Title: The Man in Green Dungarees

Author: Ng'ang'a Mbugua

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Available: Bookshops countrywide

By Kennedy Mwangi

In his characteristic simple and free-flowing style, Ng’anga’ Mbugua mesmerizes readers in what is one of his most successful books. 

The novella, written in an ordinary yet beautiful first person narrative, stamps the author’s mark on literary finesse. Told by a hawker while selling his wares in the streets, the author takes the reader through the life of an ordinary man with mixed fortunes. 

The Man in Green Dungarees describes just how a man’s determination can pull a person out of poverty and put him at the table of greatness. 

"There was a time we used to hawk with him here on this very street. Now I see him being interviewed on television and when I say that I know him, nobody believes me," the narrator states.

As in some of his previous works, in Dungarees, Mbugua employs humour and this gives the novel a light touch, making it more appealing to diverse audiences.   

"…we can sit around and tell stories now that we have no bosses to harass us and make our lives miserable. At times I pity those office types," one character in the book says.

John Benjamin is the central character in the novella. He is disillusioned in life when he misses university entrance by a point. This one missed point goes further to deny him love from his girlfriend who describes him unflatteringly as a "school dropout". He finds comfort in alcoholism and heavily indulges in a local brew to a point of sleeping in the ditch.  He is brought back to his senses by a little girl who ‘held her nose when John Benjamin walked into (the) house'. 

After this experience, John Benjamin vows to make something useful of his life and turns his good carpentry skills into a source of money by making kennels. His business grows and he starts designing and selling first-class kennels. He goes on to be nominated and wins a young entrepreneurs’ prize.

John Benjamin’s climb to the top of the ladder is not that all smooth. A conman milked him of millions of shillings and his long-trusted business friend, Parmenus Marifoti, almost got him killed after a botched narcotics assignment went sour. After the incident, he had to work extra hard to regain the trust that the public had in him.

The author also puts the education system to test. In what could be an authorial voice, John Benjamin says he was "the victim of a system which equates failing in examination with failing in life". 

He says: "Education is important if individuals are to realise their full potential but young people also need to be encouraged to exploit their talents be it in sports, arts or any other field. I failed to join university, but now I am benefiting from my talent".

This book touches on alcoholism, irresponsible parenthood, corruption, betrayal, tears, joy and love.  

The book defines the common man’s life and illuminates how a man can rise and fall and rise again depending on the choices that one makes in life.

The book’s flow of events and descriptions, coupled with the characters confines the book to the common man’s readership. Mbugua seems to take advantage of his ability to write his thoughts in a simple language that is appealing to a majority of readers. In this book, however, this art narrowly misfires as it can almost be termed as simplistic.

Kennedy Mwangi is a Literature and Political Science Student at the University of Nairobi

Kenmwangi90@gmail.com

Carjacking: Nairobi author lives to tell tales of armed crime

Book: In the Hands of Armed Tormentors
Author: Gathirwa Ndaigiri
Price: Sh580
Available at: Bookpoint and Chania Bookshop, Nairobi
Reviewer: Ng’ang’a Mbugua

Sometimes, reality can be more intriguing than fiction.
That is the impression that one gets from reading Gathirwa Ndaigiri’s latest book, In the Hands of Armed Tormentors.
Besides recounting 25 real life stories of motorists who have survived carjacking — an all too common crime in many towns, especially Nairobi — the book also gives survival tips on how one can avoid falling victim and, in the event one is caught unawares, what one can do to survive the ordeal.
Gathirwa, a lawyer by profession, said in an interview that the book was inspired partly by his own experiences, having been carjacked two times. In one incident, the gangsters were intent on killing him but he pleaded for mercy, claiming that he had bought his car as a write-off from an insurer with the sole intention of selling it to raise money to settle his wife’s hospital bills. It was a fib, but it worked. His life was spared but his car disappeared, never to be found again.
Seeing that he and people he knew had a tale to tell about their ordeals in the hands of carjackers, Gathirwa decided to compile the anecdotes into a book to educate readers on how gangsters operate so that they can be on the look-out whenever they find themselves in similar circumstances.
“I chose to share my story and those of others as one way to heal from these nightmares,” the author says in the introduction to his book. “It is my strong belief that such experiences should not be kept under wraps. They are invaluable to other people and should be shared.”
Interestingly, in nearly all the stories, the vehicles are never recovered even when they have tracking devices. And where they have been found, they are in a vandalised state, meaning that the gangsters cart off the parts to resell in a market where motorists buy second hand spare parts without asking too many questions, inadvertently creating a market for stolen parts.
But in all the anecdotes, Gathirwa emphasises that for one to survive a carjacking unscathed, it is important to co-operate with one’s tormentors. Carjackings are crimes of power. The armed gangsters want to be in control. They demand to be obeyed. And they seldom spare those who defy their orders. Even when one is ordered to drink suspicious concoctions, Gathirwa advises motorists to comply. At best, he says, the concoctions, usually laced with drugs, with knock you out for a while. But once a bullet has been fired at your head, neck or heart, the chances of survival are next to nil.
In the introduction to the book, former police commissioner Mathew Iteere says that “the influx of refugees and proliferation of illegal small arms are largely to blame for the increase in such robberies and other violent crimes in our country”. He says that from police statistics, crimes increase during rainy seasons an in the evenings.
Indeed, with the exception of a few cases in the book which occured in the morning or high noon, most of the incidents happened in the night, in dark places and in environments with which the motorists are not very familiar. In one case, a motorist had dropped off a friend on Kamiti road after a drink when gangsters struck. In another, a taxi driver in Nakuru was carjacked while waiting for a client to confirm whether the hotel he had driven into had room for the night.
This is not the first book that Gathirwa, 50, has self-published. He is also the author of The Art of Better Living, which was in 2006 approved by the Kenya Institute of Education as text for guidance and counselling in secondary schoools. He says the book has sold over 100,000 copies as a result. He is also the author of A Collection of Gikuyu Proverbs in Clusters, which contains more than 2,000 proverbs in both Kikuyu and English translation.

Some of the survivor tips that the author proposes

If you go out for a drink, go to a place that is properly fenced and has visible security personnel manning the car park. Danger lurks in open parking spaces.
Never go straight to your car without first checking the surrounding. Be aware of your surroundings at all times particularly at night or early morning hours.
Avoid driving or parking your car in desolate places.
Never fail to report a carjacking incident to the police, whether you are injured or not. Make a report even if you lose nothing to the robbers.
Do not stare at your attackers. Keep your hands in plain view and make no quick or sudden movements that the attackers could construe as a counterattack.
Do not panick. If you do, your nervousness will make the thugs think you want to resist or shout for help.
Most carjackers are rookies. They panic easily, so be calm to avoid unsettling their nerves.
Some carjackers are simply petty thieves. Give them whatever they demand, usually money or mobile phones. That may be all they are after.
It always pays to co-operate with thugs when you are their hostage.

Is Chimamanda the new Achebe?

By Ng'ang'a Mbugua

First, a confession.
I have only read one of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's books; Americanah. And I came away thinking this is an important work not because it talks about Africans but also because it talks about Africans abroad, which puts them in a globalised context.
And now, to the question which was first raised by Dr Tom Odhiambo, who, in an article published last September in the Saturday Nation, a Kenyan weekly, argued that Chimamanda is the new Chinua Achebe.
It could well be that Dr Odhiambo meant that Chimamanda is the next big thing in African and Nigerian writing, which could all be very well. But this is a mixed metaphor. It is like comparing mangoes and oranges, as they say in the fruit market.
Both Chinua and Chimamanda are important writers. In my view, however, they only thing they have in common is that  they come from Nigeria (and are coincidentally both Igbo) but that is all that they share. Whereas Chinua seeks to explore the broad theme of what ails Nigeria, Chimamanda's spotlight is turned on the individual. That that individual is Nigerian is only coincidental because she comes from that cultural context. Her characters - at least in Americanah - could be from any African country. Indeed, the minor ones are from various African countries including one from Kenya and another from Senegal. Her pre-occupation with Africa and Africans is broader than Achebe's, whose spotlight only focuses on Nigeria. Chimamanda picks her characters from all corners of the continent and explores the world through their eyes, something that one does not see in Achebe.
Secondly, Achebe, like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, explored the intersection between a traditional past and a modern present and the dilemmas that this posed for their countries at that point in time. His writing was cultural. The same cannot be said about Chimamanda. Here is a modern writer. In fact, she is closer to the humanist school of literature which is pre-occupied largely with the individual who is trying to come to terms with the angst that characterises modern life. This comes through in the struggles of Ifemelu, her main character, to find love in a series of relationships that do not always work. Some of the entanglements are sexually satisfying, but that is all they offer in a world where women want much more than mere sexual satiation. Some are simply morally offensive, even to Ifem herself, such as her brief liaison with the weird sports coach that is devoid of any emotional attachment and makes Ifem feel dirty to the point where her romantic ideas - fueled by her memories of her romantic escapades with her first lover Obinze - are buried in a deep pit, filling her with self-loathing and denting her faith in love and relationships. Some are simply destined to fail, either because of cultural, racial, temperamental or geographical barriers or because those involved step on each other's toes in their awkward attempts to tango. This is not a world for Ogbwefu Ndulue, the character in Things Fall Apart, whose wife dies within minutes of realising that he, too, is dead. As young people say on Facebook, it is complicated.
Which means that whichever way you look at it, Chimamanda is not the new Achebe. She is a vibrant voice. She brings a different kind of nuance in her tackling of the existential challenges confronting the modern young African man and woman who finds herself in a multi-cultural and multi-racial society whether at home or in the Diaspora. She is not a cultural activist in the way Achebe is and does not seek to find out what is the problem with Nigeria or with African politics per se. Rather, her overriding concern is: What is wrong with this African man/woman who has been uprooted from her home, who is trying to figure out his/her place in a world without borders, who is trying to make sense - not of the big political issues, which are only mentioned where they affect the individual directly, like when an army general keeps a mistress - but of the mundane day-to-day issues that each one of us confronts: Will this hair-dresser make my hair the way I want her to? Will this cab driver give me space to dream my dreams or will he fill my space with his narratives? Will this man love me the way I want to be loved? Should I answer this e-mail or drag it to the trash can? Will my preferred candidate win the election?
For Chimamanda, Africa is just a canvass on which she paints her work. For Achebe, Africa was the work itself. No two writers could be so far apart in their thinking, even in their points of departure and in their aesthetic goals. Chimamanda is not the new Achebe, even if she wrote Half of a Yellow Sun and he wrote There was a Country, both of which explore the Biafran question.
Critics should just consider each of the two writers on their own merits.

Ng'ang'a Mbugua is the author, most recently, of This Land is Our Land, a poetry anthology.

Business biography of hawker who made good

By Ng’ang’a Mbugua

The motif of the poor boy who becomes a wealthy man is emerging as one of the most dominant narrative strands in self-publishing in Kenya.

One of the latest entrants in this multi-million shilling market that is changing the face of publishing as we have always known it is Churchill Winstones Ochieng with his business biography, From Hawker to Banker.

Churchill started life as a shoe shiner-cum fruit hawker at Nairobi’s Burma market. With time, he found himself playing for Premier League side, Gor Mahia FC, though this did not give him a direct ticket to a materially satisfying life. Through sheer grit, persistence and an uncanny combination of creativity and audacity, he landed a job as a cleaner with Barclays Bank. The job did not come on a silver platter for the hustler. After getting nothing but a pile of regrets from writing informal job application letters, Churchill - with the help of his sister - penned a personal letter to Gareth George, then CEO of Barclays, explaining his situation and extolling his own virtues as a worker. Pummeled to submission, Gareth hired him. Soon enough, Churchill was promoted to supervisor on account of his industry and later to a messenger and clerk. By the time he was leaving the bank after close to a decade of service, he was one of its senior managers.

When he landed an opportunity to work in an even bigger capacity at CFC Bank, he resigned from Barclays to take up his new posting, which, as he explains in his 132-page book, lasted only two years. The adventure bug bit him again and he quit to Join Faulu Kenya where he is now head of retail banking.

His story, published in 2012, is certainly one of the more compelling in the genre. Churchill has the narrator’s gift and since he is more than familiar with the subject, he keeps the reader – even the skeptical reader – engrossed. That is, until he gets to the ninth and last chapter which takes the oomph out of the otherwise enchanting coming-of-age story of self-actualisation. Unlike the athlete who saves the best kick for the last lap, Churchill fails in his attempt to congeal the wisdom he has gathered over the years in pithy generalisations.

Of course, one understands that his is an attempt to impart advice that could encourage his readers to lift themselves by their bootstraps and make something of their lives. But his life story does that effortlessly. One sees how his effort is rewarded; how his willingness to take risks pays off; and how his experience as a school prefect prepares him for leadership in the workplace. However, he simply cannot resist the temptation to become a motivational writer. After all, he is a motivational speaker. For all it is worth, that chapter on “Secrets of Success” lacks the urgency, fluidity, vivacity and lucidity that characterise the rest of the book and that also make up Churchill’s DNA. In all honesty, though, he can be forgiven for spotting the hunger for motivation that is the curse of our time and going out to satiate it.

If, by any chance, you are tempted to judge the book by its cover, perish the thought. Plough right in and start with the forward which is written by Churchill’s most famous customer, Raila Amollo Odinga.

An author's tribute to his grandmother

By Ng’ang’a Mbugua

At the height of the struggle for freedom, my grandfather, Samuel Munyiri, was arrested by the colonial and detained at the Manyani Detention Camp. The following day, very early in the morning, my grandmother, Margaret Wambui, knocked on the door of the white district commissioner's residence in Nakuru.
When he answered the door, she said to him: "Since you have detained my husband, I have come to live with you".  Embarrassed, no doubt, about how to explain his predicament to his memsahib, the DC asked my grandmother to go back home and wait for her husband to be released from detention. Sure enough, my grandfather, who had been detained for supporting the Mau Mau, was released soon after.
To ensure that my grandmother did not put him in yet another spot of bother, the DC relocated the couple to Kiambu where my grandfather found a job as a milking man at the farm of a white settler that he only identified as Lord Gordon. My grandmother's recollection of his service there was that her family had plenty of milk. As a result, she used to encourage her children, my mother included, to drink a lot of milk with little blobs of Ugali (maize meal).
Years later, when my grandfather bought a one-acre piece of land near the present day Lanet Barracks, this mantra was to be turned on its head. Because my grandmother had to sell milk to her neighbours, she had to ask her children to drink little sips of milk with large blobs of Ugali because the family budget was tight. Wanyororo, by the way, was a nickname for the white settler who broke the virgin land with “nyororo-propelled” earth movers which glided on chains.
The luxuriance of the forest adjacent to the farm was to inspire my most recently published reader, The Bird Boy. Incidentally, the character of the grandmother in the story was inspired by my own grandmother. The destruction of the forest, occasioned by a decision to use the trees to provide polls for the Kenya Posts and Telecommunication Company, inspired my other reader, Susana The Brave. Thankfully, just as I had dreamed it in Susana The Brave, there have been concerted efforts to rehabilitate the forest in recent years. Other social and cultural influences that I imbibed at this time often show up in my other creative works, including some of the nostalgic passages in Terrorists of The Aberdare.
Growing up, my grandmother - a jovial, tall, energetic and slim woman with a ready smile and a hearty laugh - taught me many important cultural and historical lessons through her fireside stories. But I did not know that she was illiterate until one day when I gave her my math book and asked her to help me with a sum. I was a young boy then. When she told me "I don't know how to read", she made me wonder then and many times later how it felt to be unable to read and write. 

At some point, she enrolled in an adult education class and learnt to spell her maiden name.

And she would sing: "W na A, waaa; M na B, mbuu; U na E." It sounded like fun to her but she dropped after some time to take care of important stuff in her life, including her livestock and shambas.

Learning to read and write reminded her of her youthful days. Though her father did not allow her to attend school, she wanted to write love letters just like the girls who had some education. 

One day, she told me, she and her sister wrote letters to their boyfriends, put them in envelopes and walked a long distance to the nearest telephone pole. There, they dug a small hole, buried the envelopes and beseeched the telephone lines to dispatch their missives to their loved ones.

Interestingly, my grandfather, who was barely literate himself, would speak English "through the nose" as we used to say, on account of having spent countless hours with Lord Gordon. As to whether he could write as well, I never got to find out largely because in my formative years, he spent most of his time in Milili, near Narok town, renting land and growing potatoes. My eldest uncle would later join him in the trade whose fruits we only enjoyed when my grandfather returned him on Christmas eve every year carrying a kilo of beef and a loaf of bread.
Once, one of my uncles claimed, after having had a heavy evening meal that he would not eat anything else for the day "even if someone comes with meat". No sooner were the words out of his mouth than we heard a knock on the door. Grandfather had made a surprise visit. And he was carrying meat. Brethren, he ate some time despite his vow.
Anyway, I was telling you about my grandmother. To disguise her deficiency in English, my grandmother and some of her friends invented a language but was basically imitating English albeit light heartedly.
"Bos Gwas," she would call me.
"Wis mwes gas?" she would ask by way of greeting.
"Yes!" I would answer.
"Das this mus gus das. Nis gus kas." meaning she was going to the farm and would be back. Trouble was, I could not call her name, cucu, in kiuknglish because the 's' sounded odd if repeated.
But I loved it when other women her age would chat with her and call her "Nyis nas was Ngas is".

Hearing her say "Yeees!" one would have thought she knew the white man's language through and through.
In those days, I used to live with my mother in Bangladesh, a small estate in the outskirts of Nakuru town, and would go upcountry to live with my grandmother during school holidays. Then, she had a large family: My and uncles, all of who were in their early twenties or late teens and occasional distant relatives.
In the evening, we would sit around the hearth, telling folk tales, swapping riddles and other word games. I was always amazed that my grandmother knew so many stories. Hearing her rendering them as the fire crackled and sent ominous shadows into the dark night air that seeped through the cracks of her timber kitchen, I could imagine the villains lurking in the shadows. Invariably, all the heroes in her stories were young boys. This made me brave. It also made me want to become a story teller. Years later, when I would join Egerton University to study English and Literature, I always chuckled that I would get a degree that my grandmother so richly deserved. Indeed, one day, my maternal great grandmother, an equally gifted story teller whose two-room house was not too far from my grandmother's asked me what I was studying at the university.
"Story telling," I told her since I had no other way of explaining it. She too could not understand how the stories we told in the evenings could be the subject of a university degree. But when I wanted to do my oral literature "research" I could always count on their rich repertoire of stories. She was, in her own way, an oral artist, a repository of cultural, family and historical knowledge.
My grandmother was a strong and courageous woman. Once, when my grandfather was involved in a drunken brawl with two men in Banana Hill, he went him bleeding, if my recollection of the tale is correct. On learning who had bloodied my grandfather's nose, my grandmother set out to look for them. By the time she was done bloodying their noses with her knuckles, they had learnt the importance of keeping a safe distance between themselves and my grandfather.
Another time, when I was a teenager, a neighbour called "Macho" on account of his tendency to steal anything he set his eyes on, made away with all my grandmother's cookery and cutlery. Not long after, he pretended to be passing by. When my grandmother saw him, she started punching a banana stem as she chastised him for his thievery. Macho took to his heels when the banana tree keeled over and fell with a thud. You could see my grandmothers' molars as she laughed her head off retelling that tale. My father once faced her monumental wrath -never I - but the story, which my grandmother loved to retell, sounded like a comic adventure. And she embellished it every time she recalled the incident. 

Because I received nothing but favours from her for as long as I can remember, she became my closest friend, confidante, tutor, mentor and ally even when our family was rocked by stormy feuds. In later years, she became my neighbour when I bought a small parcel next to her. She became the manager, collecting rent, running the farm and keeping the accounts, modest as they were. In a strange twist, our relationship would become more complicated in her twilight years as she helped me navigate the curious world of cultural obligations.
In all the years that I have known her, I have never seen my grandmother taken ill. Sometimes I would complain of a headache and she would rub onion leaves on my forehead and the headache would go away. When I came down with a fever or some other condition, she would boil concoctions mixed with chicken soup and viola! I would be well again. But never once was she taken ill... until about two years ago.
One day, my grandfather's brother brought her some honey he had bought from some bee keepers in the neighbourhood. She shared the honey with her eldest son, my uncle. But as they were eating it, she complained that a bee sting had lodged itself in her tongue. My uncle tried to look for it but the poor light from the tin lamp and hearth flame was not enough. A week later, she went to see a doctor and repeated her tale.
"It is not a bee sting," the doctor said after examining her. She did not believe him. A few months later the pain was back and thus began her intermittent trips to hospitals, including admissions. She was later diagnosed with cancer of the throat area, the same condition that had led my grandfather to die of starvation over a decade earlier.  One doctor recommended that my grandmother's tongue be cut off. She refused. Her tongue was her life. She was talkative to the point of being garrulous. How could she live without it?
Desperate to heed the doctor's advice, my uncle called me.
"What do we do now and your grandmother is adamant?"
"Respect her wishes," I said. She kept her tongue but as the disease devoured it and throat, it became increasingly harder for her to eat or drink or even talk. When I saw her alive the last time, she looked nothing like the most favourite woman that she had been in my life. She managed a crooked smile but even lifting her hand to reach mine was a struggle. I held her calloused palm in mine.
"Be strong," I said to her but my words sounded hollow. How could she be strong in the face of such monumental pain and helplessness? A day before the world marked the World Cancer Day, she passed on.
If, by some miracle, I were to see her in less painful circumstances I would call out her name in Kiuknglish: "Shosh shosh."
And if she could speak she would answer in that singsong that was her voice all the years I have known her: "Yes, Bos gwas!"
And I would say to her: "Nis wes gas... Ngas is as kos ras this mes."
And she would say: "Yes!"