Download or read book Death in Kenya written by M. M. Kaye and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by celebrated author M. M. Kaye, Death in Kenya is a wonderfully evocative mystery... When Victoria Caryll is offered a position at Flamingo, her aunt's family estate in Kenya's Rift Valley, she accepts-knowing full well that the move will give her a chance to see Eden DeBrett once again, the man she was previously engaged to. But she doesn't realize that coming to her aunt's home will introduce her to an unstable region still recovering from the bloody Mau Mau revolt, and to a household thrown into grief by a recent murder. Distinguished by its mystery, romance, and exotic setting, Death in Kenya is as graceful as it is chilling-it is the beloved novel of one of our finest and most accomplished writers.

Download or read book Out Of Africa written by Isak Dinesen and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Out of Africa, author Isak Dinesen takes a wistful and nostalgic look back on her years living in Africa on a Kenyan coffee plantation. Recalling the lives of friends and neighbours—both African and European—Dinesen provides a first-hand perspective of colonial Africa. Through her obvious love of both the landscape and her time in Africa, Dinesen’s meditative writing style deeply reflects the themes of loss as her plantation fails and she returns to Europe. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.

Download or read book My Maasai Life written by Robin Wiszowaty and published by Greystone Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing up in suburban Illinois, Robin Wiszowaty leads a typical middle-class American life. Hers is a world of gleaming shopping malls, congested freeways, and neighborhood gossip. But from an early age, she has longed to break free of this existence and discover something deeper. What it is, she doesn't quite know. Yet she knows in her heart there simply has to be more. Through a fortunate twist of fate, Robin seizes an opportunity to travel to rural Kenya and join an impoverished Maasai community. Suddenly her days are spent hauling water, evading giraffes, and living in a tiny hut made of cow dung with her adoptive family. She is forced to face issues she's never considered: extreme poverty, drought, female circumcision, corruption — and discovers love in the most unexpected places. In the open wilds of the dusty savannah, this Maasai life is one she could never have imagined.

Download or read book Weep Not Child written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and published by Heinemann. This book was released on 1987 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Two small boys stand on a rubbish heap and look into the future. One boy is excited, he is beginning school; the other, his brother, is an apprentice carpetner. Together, they will serve their country--the teacher and the craftsman. But this is Kenya and times are against them. In the forests, the Mau Mau are waging war against the white government, and two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, and the rest of their family, need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical man, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge, the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up"--P. [4] of cover.

Download or read book Happy Valley written by Nicholas Best and published by Thistle Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-11 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive story of the British in Kenya, from the explorer Joseph Thomson, whose exploits inspired King Solomon's Mines, to the decadent Happy Valley set of the 1930s, the murder of Lord Erroll, and the Mau Mau revolt of the 1950s. "Nicholas Best tells an immensely entertaining tale" - Max Hastings, Evening Standard "Erudite, amusing and, even, gossipy" - Nigel Dempster, Punch "First class... quite hilariously funny!'" - Melbourne Herald "Anyone with experience of Kenya, past or present, resident or tourist, will enjoy reading Happy Valley" - Country Life

Download or read book It s Our Turn to Eat written by Michela Wrong and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-06-03 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of one man’s fight against corruption: "like a John Le Carré novel” that shows “how and why Kenya descended into political violence” (Washington Post). In January 2003, Kenya was hailed as a model of democracy after the peaceful election of President Mwai Kibaki. By appointing respected longtime reformer John Githongo as anticorruption czar, the new Kikuyu government signaled its determination to end the shady practices that had tainted the previous regime. Yet only two years later, Githongo himself was on the run, having secretly compiled evidence of official malfeasance throughout the new administration. Unable to remain silent, Githongo, at great personal risk, made the painful choice to go public. The result was a Kenyan Watergate. Michela Wrong’s account of how a pillar of the establishment turned whistle-blower—instantly becoming one of the most hated and admired men in Kenya—grips like a political thriller while probing the very roots of the nation’s predicament. “A fast-paced political thriller. . . . Wrong’s gripping, thoughtful book stands as both a tribute to Githongo’s courage and a cautionary tale.” —New York Times Book Review

Download or read book City of Saints Thieves written by Natalie C. Anderson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets Gone Girl in this enthralling murder mystery set in Kenya. In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn't exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the chance to build a new life and home. Her mother quickly found work as a maid for a prominent family, headed by Roland Greyhill, one of the city’s most respected business leaders. But Tina soon learns that the Greyhill fortune was made from a life of corruption and crime. So when her mother is found shot to death in Mr. Greyhill's personal study, she knows exactly who’s behind it. With revenge always on her mind, Tina spends the next four years surviving on the streets alone, working as a master thief for the Goondas, Sangui City’s local gang. It’s a job for the Goondas that finally brings Tina back to the Greyhill estate, giving her the chance for vengeance she’s been waiting for. But as soon as she steps inside the lavish home, she’s overtaken by the pain of old wounds and the pull of past friendships, setting into motion a dangerous cascade of events that could, at any moment, cost Tina her life. But finally uncovering the incredible truth about who killed her mother—and why—keeps her holding on in this fast-paced nail-biting thriller.

Download or read book One Day I Will Write About This Place written by Binyavanga Wainaina and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *A New York Times Notable Book* *A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice* *A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year* Binyavanga Wainaina tumbled through his middle-class Kenyan childhood out of kilter with the world around him. This world came to him as a chaos of loud and colorful sounds: the hair dryers at his mother's beauty parlor, black mamba bicycle bells, mechanics in Nairobi, the music of Michael Jackson—all punctuated by the infectious laughter of his brother and sister, Jimmy and Ciru. He could fall in with their patterns, but it would take him a while to carve out his own. In this vivid and compelling debut memoir, Wainaina takes us through his school days, his mother's religious period, his failed attempt to study in South Africa as a computer programmer, a moving family reunion in Uganda, and his travels around Kenya. The landscape in front of him always claims his main attention, but he also evokes the shifting political scene that unsettles his views on family, tribe, and nationhood. Throughout, reading is his refuge and his solace. And when, in 2002, a writing prize comes through, the door is opened for him to pursue the career that perhaps had been beckoning all along. A series of fascinating international reporting assignments follow. Finally he circles back to a Kenya in the throes of postelection violence and finds he is not the only one questioning the old certainties. Resolutely avoiding stereotype and cliché, Wainaina paints every scene in One Day I Will Write About This Place with a highly distinctive and hugely memorable brush.

Download or read book Nairobi Heat written by Mukoma Wa Ngugi and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cop from Wisconsin pursues a killer through the terrifying slums of Nairobi and the memories of genocide IN MADISON, WISCONSIN, it’s a big deal when African peace activist Joshua Hakizimana—who saved hundreds of people from the Rwandan genocide—accepts a position at the university to teach about “genocide and testimony.” Then a young woman is found murdered on his doorstep. Local police Detective Ishmael—an African-American in an “extremely white” town—suspects the crime is racially motivated; the Ku Klux Klan still holds rallies there, after all. But then he gets a mysterious phone call: “If you want the truth, you must go to its source. The truth is in the past. Come to Nairobi.” It’s the beginning of a journey that will take him to a place still vibrating from the genocide that happened around its borders, where violence is a part of everyday life, where big-oil money rules and where the local cops shoot first and ask questions later—a place, in short, where knowing the truth about history can get you killed.

Download or read book Dance of the Jakaranda written by Peter Kimani and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This funny, perceptive and ambitious work of historical fiction by a Kenyan poet and novelist explores his country’s colonial past and its legacy.” —The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice Set in the shadow of Kenya’s independence from Great Britain, Dance of the Jakaranda reimagines the special circumstances that brought black, brown and white men together to lay the railroad that heralded the birth of the nation. The novel traces the lives and loves of three men—preacher Richard Turnbull, the colonial administrator Ian McDonald, and Indian technician Babu Salim—whose lives intersect when they are implicated in the controversial birth of a child. Years later, when Babu’s grandson Rajan—who ekes out a living by singing Babu’s epic tales of the railway’s construction—accidentally kisses a mysterious stranger in a dark nightclub, the encounter provides the spark to illuminate the three men’s shared, murky past. With its riveting multiracial, multicultural cast and diverse literary allusions, Dance of the Jakaranda could well be a story of globalization. Yet the novel is firmly anchored in the African oral storytelling tradition, its language a dreamy, exalted, and earthy mix that creates new thresholds of identity, providing a fresh metaphor for race in contemporary Africa. “Destined to become one of the greats . . . This is not hyperbole: it’s a masterpiece.” —The Gazette “A fascinating part of Kenya’s history, real and imagined, is revealed and reclaimed by one of its own.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune “Kimani’s novel has an impressive breadth and scope.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Highlighted by its exquisite voice, Kimani’s novel is a standout debut.” —Publishers Weekly “Lyrical and powerful.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Planting the Trees of Kenya written by Claire A. Nivola and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr). This book was released on 2008-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Wangari Maathai, a native Kenyan, who taught the people living in the highlands how to plant trees and care for the land.

Download or read book The Perfect Nine written by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling, genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says “tackles the absurdities, injustices, and corruption of a continent” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s novels and memoirs have received glowing praise from the likes of President Barack Obama, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and NPR; he has been a finalist for the Man International Booker Prize and is annually tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; and his books have sold tens of thousands of copies around the world. In his first attempt at the epic form, Ngũgĩ tells the story of the founding of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya, from a strongly feminist perspective. A verse narrative, blending folklore, mythology, adventure, and allegory, The Perfect Nine chronicles the efforts the Gĩkũyũ founders make to find partners for their ten beautiful daughters—called “The Perfect Nine” —and the challenges they set for the 99 suitors who seek their hands in marriage. The epic has all the elements of adventure, with suspense, danger, humor, and sacrifice. Ngũgĩ’s epic is a quest for the beautiful as an ideal of living, as the motive force behind migrations of African peoples. He notes, “The epic came to me one night as a revelation of ideals of quest, courage, perseverance, unity, family; and the sense of the divine, in human struggles with nature and nurture.”

Download or read book Urban Obsessions Urban Fears written by John Roger Kurtz and published by Africa World Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kurtz's analysis the development of the Kenyan novel in English emphasizes the historical contingencies affecting the production of literature in Kenya, and how succeeding generations have drawn from and expanded the thematic repertoire established by the 'first generation' of works in the 1960s.He explores the relationship between the novel and the city, and how obsessions and fears about the urbanization have been expressed and represented through different generations of Kenyan writers. Kurtz has also put together the first annotated bibliography of all the anglophone Kenyan novels that have appeared since Ngugi wa Thiong'o wrote Weep Not, Child.Ngugi's Weep Not, Child made an immediate impact on its publication in 1964. Since then hundreds of novels by Kenyans have been published. This is a comprehensive introduction to the postcolonial novel in English. Three broad areas are identified: -- the first generation of the sixties -- the 'golden age' of the seventies -- and the years after Kenyatta in the 80s and 90sA unifying feature is an uneasy but marked emphasis on the city-particularly Nairobi. The city is used by novelists as both the site and the symbol for a range of obsessions and fears about postcolonial society. There is particular emphasis on the changing ways in which the city has been portrayed since Ngugi's first novel, the relation of popular literature to the city, the portrayal of women in the city and the special status of Meja Mwangi's urban novels.

Download or read book The Promised Land written by Grace Ogot and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 1991-06-15 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young farmer and his wife who have migrated to Tanzania from Kenya become embroiled in issues of personal jealousy and materialism, and a melodramatic tale of tribal hatreds ensues. The novel explores Ogot's concept of the ideal African wife: obedient and submissive to her husband; family and community orientated; and committed to non-materialist goals. The style is distinctively ironic giving the story power and relevance. Grace Ogot has been employed in diverse occupations as a novelist, short story writer, scriptwriter, politician, and representative to the UN. Some of her other works include The Island of Tears (1980), the short story collection Land Without Thunder (1988), The Strange Bride (1989) and The Other Woman (1992). The Promised Land was originally published in 1966, and has since been reprinted five times.

Download or read book Black Star Nairobi written by Mukoma Wa Ngugi and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two cops—one American, one Kenyan—team up to track down a deadly terrorist. It’s December 2007. The Kenyan presidential elections have gotten off to a troubled start, with threats of ethnic violence in the air, and the reports about Barack Obama on the campaign trail in the United States are the subject of newspaper editorials and barstool debates. And Ishmael and O have just gotten their first big break for their new detective agency, Black Star. A mysterious death they’re investigating appears to be linked to the recent bombing of a downtown Nairobi hotel. But local forces start to come down on them to back off the case, and then a startling act of violence tips the scales, setting them off on a round-the-globe pursuit of the shadowy forces behind it all. A thrilling, hard-hitting novel, from the author of Nairobi Heat, a major new crime talent.

Download or read book A Grain of Wheat written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 1971 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Nairobi Noir written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this anthology, fourteen authors explore dark mysteries in the concrete jungle capital of Kenya, dealing with topics of race, religion, and corruption. Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Brand-new stories by: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Stanley Gazemba, Ngumi Kibera, Peter Kimani, Winfred Kiunga, Kinyanjui Kombani, Caroline Mose, Kevin Mwachiro, Wanjiku wa Ngugi, Faith Oneya, Makena Onjerika, Troy Onyango, J.E. Sibi-Okumu, and Rasna Warah. Praise for Nairobi Noir “Nairobi Noir takes readers into the enigmas that haunt Kenya’s most populous city through the deft storytelling of a stellar cast of writers, which includes Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Stanley Gazemba, Makena Onjerika, Troy Onyango, and others.” —Brittle Paper, One of 50 Notable African Books of 2020 “Nairobi is a city of 3 million souls, so it makes sense as a setting Akashic Books’ famed noir series. 14 new stories fill a collection with Nairobi old and new; authors range in age from 24 to 81, and many layers of the city and its complex subcultures will be revealed as the reader makes their way through. Perfect for the armchair traveler!” —CrimeReads, included in CrimeReads’ Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2020 “Crime fiction fans have much to savor.” —Publishers Weekly