KENYAN THEATRE: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

First and foremost, let me clarify that by ‘theatre’ I am referring to professional stage productions (whereby the players expect to make money) and that are open to the general public. Excluded from my sphere of research are school dramas, talent shows and any theatrical production that is sponsored by a religious organization or NGO.

Contrary to popular belief, Kenya National Theatre (affectionately known to artists as ‘KNT’) is neither the oldest nor the largest theatre in the country. However, it is the most culturally relevant and the only one seen to have a national outlook. Reportedly, the Kenya National Theatre was initially built as a place for soldiers, brought in by the British Empire to quell the Mau Mau rebellion, to be entertained. However, given its size and location, it probably had a larger billing than that ie. was meant as an entertainment centre for the growing White community. It is a stone’s throw away from the Norfolk Hotel (a mecca for the who’s who of colonial times) and Central Police Station (of course then controlled by the colonial gov’t). KNT is now part of the Kenya Cultural Centre which also includes The Kenya Conservatoire of Music. Literary titans Wahome Mutahi, Francis Imbuga and Ngugi wa Thiong’o have all staged plays there.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s KNT plays included The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (co-written with Micere Mugo) and Ngahiika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Choose).  Maitu Njugira (Mother Sing for Me) was supposed to be stage there but was denied permission and banned altogether.

Francis Imbuga (recently deceased) is probably the best-known Kenyan playwright (as opposed to other types of writers) and his most notable work is Betrayal in the City which was made a KCSE set-book. His other titles include Aminata (a KCSE set-book), Shrine of Tears, Man of Kafira and the Burning of Rags[1]. Imbuga was a Professor and lectured at Kenyatta University. In his younger days, he was an ardent actor for both stage and TV.

Uganda’s John Ruganda must have been a very huge fan of Prof. Imbuga. Ruganda authored a book entitled Telling the Truth Laughingly: The Politics of Francis Imbuga’s Drama. Ruganda is himself a noted playwright, director and actor. He worked with the Makerere Travelling Theatre, Nairobi University Players and co-founded the Makonde Group. Ruganda’s own plays The Burdens, The Flood, Music Without Tears and Game of Silence have all been performed at KNT.

Mombasa's Little Theatre Club recently clocked 60 years of existence, although, according to a KTN TV report by Ferdinand Omondi, there isn’t much to show for all those years of being. It was initially a club for Royal navy sailors after World War II but was later leased out for various functions, including serving as a hospital. In 1952, White settlers leased the space and established ‘The Little Theatre Club’ for their own entertainment. Performances ranged from stage plays to choreographed dances. Jazz legend Louis Armstrong (Coal Cart Blues) performed there in 1960! The Little Theatre is still considered the home of culture and art in Mombasa (it’s the best-known spot for Coast-based thespians), but has a chequered history. It nearly faded into insignificance in the last decade although there now appears to be a spirited effort by stakeholders to restore its lost glory. The government has gazetted it as a National Monument.

Phoenix Theatre was established in 1983 by the fabled James Falkland and is the largest and oldest repertory theatre company in East and Central Africa. Their 120-pax auditorium is located in the Professional Centre on Parliament Road, Nairobi. Phoenix ‘alumni’ include Ian Mbugua (TV’s ‘Judge Ian’), TV presenter Jimmi Gathu, radio presenter Edward Kwach, Charles Bukeko (TV’s ‘Papa Shirandula’), poet Caroline Nderitu, thespian/writer John Sibi-Okumu[2], TV host Sheila Mwanyiga, thespian Millicent Ogutu, TV presenter Julie Gichuru, former TV presenter Lorna Irungu, actress Lupita Nyong’o (the first indigenous Kenyan to win an Oscar award[3]) and the current Phoenix Theatre MD David Opondoe, among many, many other well-known personalities. Its name symbolised the return of theatrical performances – a rising from the ashes – after the nearby Donovan Maule Theatre (est. 1947) was burnt to the ground.

Other popular venues for stage plays include Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institut, Braeburn School and the Courtyard Theatre, all in Nairobi.

And as we discuss theatre, let us not forget the sizeable Asian community in Kenya. ‘Kenindians’, as they are sometimes called, hold many staged events, including Hindi/Gujerati performances but unfortunately (and it is unfortunate), they are still perceived by Black Kenyans to be isolationist and therefore rarely do the majority of other Kenyans bother with them. Often, you will only see reviews of these performances (some of which include artists from mother India) in the ‘Asian scene’ section of the papers. The bi-annual Asian Mosaic of Society and the Arts (SAMOSA) Festival is one of the few platforms that bring together artistic performances from the Asian community and the original Kenyans. SAMOSA Fest was founded in 2004 in an effort to bring better understanding between the Asians and Kenyan tribes. The last SAMOSA festival highlighted the Sidis (African-Asians who live in India). The Sidis are descended from a group of Africans who were transported to India in historical times. They were initially known as the ‘Bombay Africans’ and chief among them was a man called Sidi, after whom the entire clan is now named[4]. Performances included a play called Tides, by Kouldip Sondhi. Kenindian plays include Pehli Preet (First Love) and Dhabakta Haiya (Throbbing Heart).

‘Africa has wrote no discernible changes in them. So it is with most East African Asians. They have remained spiritually intact: That has been their greatest strength; and their fatal weakness.’ – V. S. Naipul, North of South

THE GOOD

‘I want theatre in Kenya to be truly professional. You, as an actor, can be a brand. And make money…The quality of the shows has really gone high because the professionalism of the performers.’ – David Opondoe, Managing Director of Phoenix Theatre,

speaking at an Arterial Network event in August, 2013

‘You have devoted your life to bringing laughter to the masses, including me. Yet, to the educated, you are the pre-eminent post-modern humourist. Your act has hints of Harold Pinter[5] and Samuel Beckett – ‘‘Theatre of the Absurd’’; shifting between the surreal and the slapstick. -  Actor Gary Busey in The Comedy Central Roast of Larry the Cable Guy

Some theatre groups, like Heartstrings Kenya and Festival of Creative Arts, have found formulas for staging successful plays. Their productions are usually critically and commercially successful. Heartstrings Kenya is uncanny in its ability to attract hordes of play-goers to the Alliance Francaise where they usually perform. Heartstrings plays are usually comedies with very localized themes and colloquial language. Some of their many hits include Dare Kenyans To Love, News Made in Kenya, Divorce Made in Kenya, Kenyan Playboy and 50% Kenyan. One of the key people behind the group is radio/TV star Daniel Ndambuki aka ‘Churchill’ (TV’s Churchill Live). The ticket price is usually about Kshs 500 (USD$ 5.8) which is fair for a Nairobi city audience. When I was a magazine writer/editor, our office was situated near Alliance Francaise and I would often go down on Fridays to buy a ticket for various plays. What impressed me about Heartstrings shows was how often the first shows would be entirely sold out and I would have to book for later dates.

In December 2013, President Uhuru Kenyatta commissioned the rehabilitation of the Kenya Cultural Centre incorporating the Kenya National Theatre. KNT was one of the landmark facilities earmarked for renovation as a way of commemorating 50 years of Kenya’s independence. It is due for a major facelift after the Kenya Breweries Limited allocated an estimated Kshs 500 million (US$ 1,1 million) for its refurbishment. During the launch of the project, President Uhuru Kenyatta said:

‘The first ever refurbishment of this building that would turn it hopefully into a modern building worthy of its name and the history that it carries with it.’

On his part, Nairobi governor, Evans Kidero, revealed that the Nairobi County government would relieve the KNT of most of the monetary dues it owed the county government:

‘We did agree and I accepted to write off the 96 percent of the amount owed to the county government.’

Details of the intended refurbishment were also posted on the president’s official website.

On January 16^th 2014, an article entitled ‘Youth Fund Boosts Theatre with Kshs 100m’ appeared in the East African Standard, story by George Orido.  According to it, the chairman of the Youth Enterprise and Development Fund, Gor Semelang’o has announced a Kshs 100 million stimulus package for theatrical arts, to boost live theatre, in tandem with film and music which are due to receive Kshs 600 and Ksh 300 million respectively. Mr. Semelang’o: ‘It will also excite quality performances on stage and as a result bring a huge paying audience back to our theatres.’

Phoenix MD proudly says that the First Lady, Margaret Kenyatta, attended the show For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf which was staged at Phoenix Theatre in 2013. The play – which contains deeply personal poetic narratives by several African-American women characters – was written by America’s Ntozake Shange and was only the second play by a Black woman to reach Broadway. Ntozake Shange also wrote other successful plays, including an adaptation of Bertlot Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children (1980) which won an Obie award.

The 2013 For Coloured Girls... show was directed (and starred) stage veteran Mŭmbi Kaigwa. Interestingly, Mŭmbi had acted in this very play, at Phoenix, back in 1987. In the 2013 revival, she starred alongside her daughter, Mo Pearson. 

‘One thing I don’t need is any more apologies. I got sorry greeting me at my front door, you can keep yours. I don’t know what to do with them. They don’t open doors or bring the sun back, they don’t make me happy or get a morning paper.’ ― From Ntozake Shange’s, For Colored Girls who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf[6] (a ‘choreopoem’)

In 2010, the Oyier Brothers – Peter and Paul Oyier of Sterling Entertainment Productions - staged the famous South African musical Sarafina! in Kenya (with a local cast) and even brought ‘Sarafina’ herself – SA actress Leleti Khumalo - to the premiere. Sterling Entertainment has also staged various other high-quality productions such as Gentlemen in Concert and Ladies in Concert, which involved media personalities and other familiar faces. This yearning for international standards might just be the catalyst we need to propel live theatre into the league of mainstream entertainment. Many thespians, especially in Nairobi, are not satisfied with high-school-type acting-for-fun arrangements. They want to be taken seriously and they won’t to be involved in serious productions ie. they want theatre to put food on the table, place a roof over their heads and (hopefully) open doors to other acting opportunities such as TV and films. In short, they want it to be like Broadway whereby top actors became famous (in the theatre community), earn good money, receive recognition (awards etc) and often cross over to other entertainment fields. Broadway is so mainstream that numerous movie and film stars participate in it or revere it. Screen actors who are deeply involved with Broadway include Neil Patrick Harris (TV’s How I Met Your Mother), Hugh Jackman (X-Men), Oprah Winfrey (The Colour Purple), James Earl Jones (The Lion King) and the late tap-dancing Gregory Hines[7] (TV’s The Gregory Hines Show). Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman have both hosted the Tony Award ceremony. Increasingly, Kenyan troupes are putting out quality performances: from the acting to the productions values.

‘Radio theatre’ used to be popular on KBC radio but appears less so in these days of FM radio warfare. However, the BBC World Service has regular, and very high quality, radio plays contributed by listeners from all over the globe. They run an International Radio Playwriting Competition (with plenty of tips on their website on how to write for radio) in which local scribes are ardent participants. Kenyans who have won the BBC’s Radio Play competition include Crystal Ading’, whose winning script, The Game Plan, was brought to life by players from Kenya’s The Theatre Company.

 Theatre Awards – Theatre awards are back! The Sanaa Theatre Awards were launched in 2013, as Kenya celebrated 50 years of being a republic. Kenya hasn’t had any major awards for professional theatre since 2004, when the Mbalamwezi Awards went under. Apart from Sanaa Theatre Awards, I have it on good authority that there is at least one more theatre award franchise that will come on stream in the near future. This is great. Theatre awards will not only bring excitement to the scene and motivate performers but will also help in the financial department eg. If a certain producer has a string of award-winning shows, it will be easier to seek future funding for his/her projects. Similarly, if a certain actor is winning accolades across the award ceremonies, then critics and fans have no choice but view him/her as something special (since the award committees are independent and often rivals). The actor will then be in a better position to negotiate preferential acting fees or leverage the acclaim to seek roles in TV, film and advertisements.

Below is a partial list of the 2013 Sanaa Award Winners. The full list can be found on online at SanaaTheatreAwards.com:

Best Actor

Simon Oyatsi - The Theatre Company/Uzinduzi

                                                                                                                                

Best Actress

Nice Githinji - Festival of Creative Arts

Best Director

Sammy Mwangi, Victor Ber - Heartstrings

Best Set Light And Sound Design

Elements by John Sibi-Okumu

Best Costumes

Shackles of Doom - Butere Girls

Best Production

Wanjikus Dilemma by Oby Obyeodhyambo

Best Comedy

Kenyan Pig Cat and Dogs - Heartstrings Kenya

Best Tragedy

Eulogy of A Rich Man - Uzinduzi Productions

Best Musical Theatre

Mo Faya by Eric Wainaina - Godown Arts Centre

Best Dance Theatre

Flamingo Flamenco by Kenya Performing Arts Group

                       

Best Play In English

Wanjikus Dilemma by Oby Obyerodhyambo

Best Play In Kiswahili

Operesheni Linda Utu - Malindi High School

Best Play In Local Language

Ruhi Ruhiu - Johari Productions

THE BAD

‘Dear Kenyan theatre companies...please stop sending me invitations to watch your "latest hilarious rib-tickling blockbuster comedy" - "Run For Your Wife" or "Birthday Suite" or "Bedside Manners". Those are farces written in the 50s and 60s for British audiences, which you bastardise by changing character and place names - "Kenyanising", you call it. It doesn't work, and it's actually illegal! We're tired of repeats of old British plays! I don't want to see "Boeing Boeing" again - it's outdated! We're in the age of mobile phones and the internet, two things which would make those plays very unfunny in a second! Stop being lazy and create something original!' – A scriptwriter and former thespian (name withheld), ranting on Facebook

White Man’s Country? - Phoenix Theatre has in the past being accused of being ‘elitist’ and catering to mzungu (White) audiences. In recent years, the repertory theatre company has done a lot to counteract this impression. They have also been accused of having above-average ticket costs[8]. The players attribute this to the relative small size of the auditorium although the average punter doesn’t see why they can’t seek another venue (there has even been rumour that there are plans to demolish the entire Professional Centre that houses Phoenix and build a skyscraper in its place, so they might be on borrowed time anyway). But more pragmatically, if, say, a lawyer with an office in Victoria Park Towers, overlooking Nairobi’s Central Park, were to keep complaining to you about how expensive it is and how he is being threatened with eviction, wouldn’t you advice him to put his ego aside and move to a more practical office? For how long will Phoenix continue ‘struggling’?

Obsession with British farces/foreign material - If there’s an aspect of Kenyan theatre that drives audiences to distraction, it is the industry’s obsession with foreign plays. Critics have complained about this countless times but most of most players seem to turn a deaf ear to the criticism. The constant re-hashing of European bedroom farces (with a few minor changes to the names, places and locations in order to ‘localize’ the content) betrays a lack of originality. Some of the most popular playwrights in Nairobi theatre are Ray Cooney (Not Now Darling, Run for Your Wife, Husband for Breakfast, Wife Begins at Forty), Marc Carmoletti (Boeing Boeing) and Derek Benfield (Bedside Manners). Never mind that Kenyans don’t know these foreign writers from the man on the moon.

The stock answer given to critics when they ask why foreign plays keep being regurgitated is that Kenyan scripts/playwrights can’t match the ‘quality’ of their foreign counterparts. It’s a lazy answer and it can’t withstand cross-examination. How do you explain the runaway success of Heartstrings Kenya which specializes in local content? How do explain the rise of vernacular (especially Kikuyu) plays in recent times? How have scriptwriters like John Sibi-Okumu (Minister Karibu, Role Play, Meetings) and Cajetan Boy (All Girls Together, Backlash, Benta) managed to earn positive reviews from critics if their writings are not up to par?

Plays like She Ate the Female Cassava by Jimmi Makotsi[9] and Betrayal in the City by Francis Imbuga have become Kenyan classics and received wide critical acclaim. (She Ate the Female Cassava won a National Playwrights Award in 1980). Don’t you honestly think that Kenyans would be more interested in stories/characters they can closely identify with? The problem is that they rarely get that opportunity.

Short runs - A Broadway show typically costs millions of dollars to bring to reality and can take months or years to actually get on the Broadway circuit. For example, US TV personality Roseanne is said to have sunk $10 million into the production of gay singer Boy George’s musical, Taboo[10]. So how does one recover so much money from a stage play – and make a profit? For starters, Broadway tickets are usually very pricey: a single ticket for a popular show like Wicked or Les Miserablés can cost $100 or more. But the larger strategy is to have the show running for years – either all on Broadway or on tour. A typical show has hundreds of performances (hence the importance of understudies, in case a major character is missing or on a break). Many shows (especially musicals) have had thousands of performances (If it’s a good show then the reviews, hype, word-of-mouth etc will always make new people want to see it). Some shows like Andrew Lloyd Webbers’ Cats ran for years without a break. Another good example is the classic British musical Me and My Girl (a coming-of-age story about a poor Londoner who inherits a fortune and has to learn how to be a ‘gentleman’) which ran for 3 years on Broadway[11], covering 1,400 performances. What a challenge to Kenyan theatre troupes!

Most Kenyan productions last only one weekend and then they are buried for good (On Broadway, revivals are common, there’s even a category for them in the Tony Awards). Even if you make a profit during a weekend run (of 6 – 8 performances), imagine how much money you would have made over 100 performances (different venues, if necessary). Remember that the cast has already memorized, rehearsed and performed the play. Why waste it? Let them do more shows! Get event organizers, marketers, booking agents etc. But don’t waste a good production on a few shows. Some companies like Heartstrings Kenya will occasionally revive a show ‘due to public demand’ and this is an indication of the business sense that makes them succeed where so many others have failed. Think about it: a musician can record a song once and rest assured that thousands will hear it by buying the CD, downloading it from the Internet or hearing it on radio. Similarly, a stand-up comedian like Kenya’s Eric Omondi, Nigeria’s Basket Mouth or South Africa’s Trevor Noah can give a single live performance for a DVD recording and never repeat the act because any number of people can buy the DVD, watch it on YouTube or catch it on TV. But live actors have no such luck. They can only perform effectively to relatively small crowds (usually below 500), so to make any serious bucks (via ticket sales), they have no choice but to have a show that is so great, so evergreen, that it bears repeating dozens, hundreds or even thousands of times. The up side to this is that it creates truly professional actors – people who earn a living on stage (because they’re always working).

Some local productions culminate in a single performance.  All that time and effort spent on an original script, memorizing (ie. ‘cramming’), rehearsing, travelling, venue, decoration and so on is wasted on a single production. There’s no way it can possibly pay enough to inspire multiple future productions. The cast and crew can only do this for the love of theatre – the camaraderie, the thrill of being on stage, the living out of a childhood dream/fantasy etc. But otherwise, everyone involved had better hang on to their day jobs.

Poor marketing/promotion - Playwright and Kenyatta University theatre arts lecturer, David Mulwa, has pointed out that one of the factors hampering the success of theatre is lack of proper marketing. He avers that (book) publishers should call for stage scripts and hold workshops with writers on how to market them.

Zimbabwe has a vibrant six-day performing arts extravaganza dubbed ‘Harare International Festival of Arts’ that takes place annually. Why don’t Kenyan thespians have a similar festival in order to uplift their art? (Zimbabwe also has a famous annual Book Fair that leaves Kenya’s Nairobi International Book Fair standing.)

Lack of professionalism                                                 

Shortly after the movie Benta, based on Cajetan Boy’s play of the same title, premiered in Nairobi, the actress who starred in it gave an interview to the Buzz pullout of the Sunday Nation. In it, she revealed that when production began she didn’t know she was the designated star and was late to arrive on set. She said Cajetan called her on cellphone and told her that if she wasn’t there in the next few minutes, her role would be re-cast. This kind of thing happens all the time – actors either missing rehearsals or turning up late or taking the production as a hobby rather than a job.

THE UGLY

‘Grandma said it was an outrage. ‘‘One of two terrible things will happen,’’ she predicted. ‘‘She’ll either kill herself, or worse yet, she’ll get along fine and end up in vaudeville’’.’

– Louise Baker, Out on a Limb (A Biography)

‘And finally, don’t thank your parents (after receiving your award). If you were raised in a nurturing environment, you wouldn’t be in show business!’ 

- Comedian Conan O’Brien hosting TV’s Emmy Awards

Veteran thespian/filmmaker Lee Kanyare of the Nyeri-based A.C.T Theatre Group has many tales about the theatre. He has been involved in theatre since the 1960’s and personally knew most of Kenya’s pioneering thespians. A sad story that Kanyare tells revolves around a young male actor who used to be part of their troupe when they used to perform at KNT with the likes of Wahome Mutahi. This particular aspiring actor came from a rich Nairobi family but his sole ambition was to become an actor. His bourgeois family wanted nothing to do with his foray into theatre and refused to support him in any way. Struggling financially and otherwise, he would make regular appearances at KNT but when it was time for lunch, he would go to a nearby bush and take a nap. He didn’t have money for lunch and, coming from the suburbs, he was too proud to beg from his lower-class artist friends.  Eventually, he got sick and died from a treatable illness – all because he didn’t want to prove his parents right and he was too proud to seek assistance from his peers. Following that incident, the ageing Lee Kanyare now likes to make sure that all performers in his productions are OK (they have food, bus fare etc). He has often dropped actors off in his own car.

Theatre in Kenya has long been considered a ‘hunger art’. Actors’ remunerations are often pitiable and most thespians do it for the love of acting (in other words, out of passion) or as a springboard to other ‘real’ acting opportunities in TV, film or commercials. Quite a number of top TV and celluloid stars cut their teeth in the poverty-stricken theatres. These stars (some of whom went on to generate millions of shillings) include Charles Bukeko (star of TV’s Papa Shirandula), Daniel Ndambuki (mega star of TV’s Churchill Live),  Joni ‘Ras’ Gathui who appears on Citizen TV’s Mother–In-Law, ‘Peter Marangi’ (seen on Dura Coat paint ads), singer/actor Size 8 (who has acted in various KBC TV shows in addition to making it big in the music industry) and TerryAnne Chebet who was an actor with Caroline Nderitu’s Poetry Lab stage group  before acting in the KBC TV show Reflections and then moving on to be a TV business anchor and national celebrity. The hit movie Nairobi Half Life, directed by Tosh Gitonga, drew almost all its actors from the world of theatre (the company of Heartstrings in particular).

But for the most part, theatre in Kenya remains a ‘hunger art’ and many thespians are struggling to make ends meet, especially if they have no other means of generating an income. Due to lack of funds to produce shows, many theatre groups rehearse in public areas such as Uhuru Park and the Nairobi Arboretum. And as you might expect in a city with one of the world’s most alarming crime rates, when the stakes are there, the producer or somebody else often grabs them and runs. An example is a young man who wrote in to the papers to complain about a particular producer who is notorious for denying actors their dues after the fact. In one anecdote, the angry young man told of how the producer transported his entire cast to a series of shows in Western Kenya. After the run - which grossed slightly over Kshs 200,000 - ‘the guy picked up his girlfriend and went MIA for several days. He wouldn’t even answer his phone.’ This is not an isolated incident. Quarrels over gate receipts by disgruntled actors are par for the course in Kenyan theatre. An even worse scenario is when the turn-up for a play is poorer than expected (for whatever reason), resulting in a financial loss for a theatre group that had put in so much for marketing, not to mention the time and energy they used up in rehearsals and performances.

Apart from individual actors and companies, even the playhouses have been through rough financial times. According to an article in The Standard, the Nairobi county government once demanded rate arrears from The Kenya Cultural Centre (incorporating KNT) amounting to over Ksh 400 million and threatened to auction away property to recover the monies. Phoenix Theatre, on the other hand, is often described as living up to its name by nearly going into extinction severally but magically rising again. During Ian Mbugua’s tenure as MD, it briefly closed its doors (in 2009 – 2010).

---

[1] Filmed as The Married Bachelor – it’s original title

[2] Has acted in about 40 stage plays since the 1970’s

[3] For the Steve McQueen-directed Hollywood movie, 12 Years a Slave, based on a non-fiction book of the same title

[4] Full details and photos available at the Rabai Museum in Mombasa. E-mail: publicrelations@museums.or.ke

[5] Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

[6] ‘Ntozake Shange’s poetry approaches the force of a whirlwind’ – Encore American & Worldwide News

[7] Tony Award Winner for Jelly’s Last Jam

[8] Phoenix Theatre tickets are now pretty much the same as other major venues in Nairobi ie. around Ksh 500

[9] Published by Heinemann, London, England, 1988

[10] A show whose preparation was marred by conflicts between her and Boy George

[11] Incidentally, it was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, winning 3 (Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Choreography)

Seasons of the Jacarandas - An Anthology of Stories Set in Kenya

Prof. Elizabeth Orchardson-Mazrui currently teaches Art and Design in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Kenyatta University, Kenya. She studied Art and Design at Cambridge School of Art, Cambridge, UK and has a B.A in Textiles/Fashion (1st Class Hons) from West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham, UK. She holds a PhD in Art History from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. She is also a practising artist and writer. Her books include: 'The Adventures of Mekatilili'; 'Sheila, Let's Write to God'; Bittersweet: the Pain and Joy of Being' (book of poems) and 'Art and Material Culture: a Socio-historical Study of the Mijikenda' and "Travels in the Holy Land and Other Countries'. Elizabeth has also published academic articles on Mijikenda socio-cultural-belief systems, gender and human rights issues, and Art and Design books for schools.

''Seasons of the Jacarandas'' is available at Amazon.com

Intellectual Property

‘I have nothing to declare except my genius.’ - Oscar Wilde

Not too long ago, Britain’s J.K. Rowling was a penniless[1] single mother with a dream to be a writer. She conceived the idea for her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, during a delayed train ride in 1990 and finished it in 1995. Her fortunes changed in 1997 when she published her first Harry Potter book.

Demand for her tale about an orphan (Harry Potter) who has inherited magical powers set the world on fire and she went on to make publishing history! It wasn’t long before Hollywood came calling and the film deal that the single mom made (with Warner Bros.) catapulted her to the highest financial circles. Today, her net worth is estimated to be $1 billion US dollars, making her one of the richest private citizens in the UK (and some say richer than the Queen of England). According a Bloomberg GameChangers documentary, the Harry Potter movie franchise is now the biggest of all time (spanning movies, home videos, toys, clothes and a theme park).

The Chronicles of Narnia blockbuster films based on the novels by Lewis C. Clark also spawned a multi-million-dollar franchise (the creator was dead by the time the movies were made so deals had to be signed with his estate). The movies in the series include The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008), and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). As of 3/9/11, the third Narnia movie had made $104,029,149 (Source: Box Office Mojo). The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was made by Walt Disney while the songs from the movie were distributed by EMI Music Group. According to Wikipedia, the series has now grossed over $1.5 billion, making it the 19th highest-grossing film series of all time.

‘Intellectual Property’ is real property, just like land, cars or houses, and - as you can see from the above examples - can be quite lucrative. Intellectual Property is protected under international law. It is also subject to protection according to the Kenyan Constitution (The

Copyright Act, The Trademarks Act et al).

Copyright (basically ‘right to copy’) is branch of Intellectual Property. It refers to a set of exclusive rights to regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. Under international copyright law, a new idea, artistic work or other copyrightable work is automatically copyrighted after being expressed. A book, for example, is an expression of the author’s ideas. If the author/publisher of the book comes across a pirate infringing his copyright, he can make a citizen’s arrest and take the suspect to the nearest police station with the pirated books as evidence.

Copyright subsists in a work from the instant it is expressed (eg. when a book is written) and is enforceable by International Law. The symbol for copyright is © ; in some jurisdictions (c) is also accepted; and is usually followed by a year and the name of the copyright holder eg.

Copyright © 2011 Alex Nderitu

It’s a good idea to place this kind of copyright notice on your poems (eg. when posting them online) and all other literary works (even if you’re giving them away for free). It allows people to know who to contact in case they want to use your work elsewhere or make a derivative work/product from it.

The Kenya Copyright Board keeps a database of Intellectual Property works registered with them. To patent something, contact the Kenya Intellectual Property Institute.

Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or ‘works’. These include poems, plays and other literary works; films, choreographic works such as dances, musical compositions, audio recordings; paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs; software; radio and television broadcasts and industrial designs (eg, a design for a new car, new ship or new airplane.) Copyright law covers only the ‘form of expression’ of ideas or information, not the idea/concept itself. For example, some years ago, pop singer Madonna was successfully sued by a European photographer for some poses that she struck in one of her music videos. The poses included the entertainer sitting atop a running TV set with her legs splayed all the way to the sides. The photographer could prove that those poses were taken from magazine pictures he had previously shot, featuring a female model. The photographer could not have sued Madonna for sitting in a chair or walking down the street, since those are not new ideas that he had expressed. But the concept or image of a woman sitting atop a TV that's on, with legs splayed wide, was unique (unless you’re some kind of freak!) It was an idea from a creative mind and by directing a model to assume that pose while he took pictures, the photographer expressed the idea and therefore had copyright over it.

With so many derivative products now being made from literary works (especially novels), it is paramount that young writers learn all they can about Intellectual Property and know exactly what they are signing away when they get published the traditional way. It might shock some people to learn that if you’re published the traditional way, they publisher might own your copyright (until your book goes out of print in which case copyright reverts to you). What this means is that if a film company wants to make a movie based on your book, or if a foreign publisher wants to publish your book in another language, you might not have any say in the matter!

Admittedly, that sounds rather unfair, but it happens. A book can be successful but the author doesn’t seem to be doing well in the money stakes, especially when you consider that an author usually gets between 10% and 12% as royalties on his Intellectual Property. I once decided against entering a local short story competition, where the prize for the winners was publication and thereafter royalties, because they made it clear that they would own the ‘first rights’ for the stories. I am in touch with a local filmmaker who likes my short stories, especially the humorous ones like the Konkodi articles, and I’d hate to be in a position where I would have to buy back my own Intellectual Property in order to make derivative works. A local poet got a rude shock when she asked her publisher if he could give her several copies of her books to sell during a Spoken Word Poetry session she was performing at, only to be told that she would have to buy her own books – at the same discounted rate as the bookshops!

This issue of rights/Intellectual Property makes self-publishing/independent publishing ever more attractive to the creative writer. If you write on topics such as gardening, interior design, gadgets, motivational or self-help issues, Bible studies/companions, textbooks etc, then a traditional publisher is still the best option for you. After all, no board games, video games, movies, TV shows or other derivative products will ever be made from your work. But a creative writer is different since there are so many rights that could come into play as far as his or her work is concerned. These include:

- Paperback and Hardback rights

- Film and TV rights

- Software rights (video games, computer games etc)

- E-book rights

- Stage rights (Theatre)

- Translation rights (To other languages)

…and so on. And with e-books and independent publishing (such as Print-on-Demand) growing in leaps and bounds, some novelists are starting to wonder why they would need a bricks-and-mortar publisher.

---

[1] She went on welfare after being fired from a couple of jobs for writing instead of working! (Source: Bloomberg GameChangers)

Future Shock: Where Are the New Technologies Taking Us?

‘Right now, the book industry consists of authors, publishers, agencies and retailers. Thanks to people like (bestselling e-book author) John Locke, one of those last three categories is going to cease to exist and the other two are going to absorb its functions.’

- Jeff Bercovici, Forbes magazine writer

There’s quite a bit of innovation and experimentation going on in the world of publishing today. Apart from the aforementioned inventions like the Kindle, here are some more creations:

Vook, founded by Bradley Inman is a platform for e-books that seeks to combine text, video and social networks such as Twitter. Inman is also the founder of TurnHere, a production company that creates author videos for publishers. Exploring the potential of such e-book devices as the Amazon Kindle, Inman wrote his own thriller, The Right Way to do Wrong, and used TurnHere to create two dozen short videos to promote it.

WE-Book, a New York Based startup, allows people to collaborate on writing books and is looking for ways to let readers give writers real-time feedback on their literature.

Wattpad, based in Toronto, Canada, is among several startups soliciting the work of unpublished authors and distributing it on the Internet and on mobile phones – completely bypassing traditional publishers.

Innovations like these have turned publishing on its head. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. The demise of Borders shows how serious the challenges facing bookshops are. In a Deutsche Welle (German) TV magazine show some years back, a young man was shown walking past a bookshop, his hands buried deep in his trench coat. A translated voiceover said, to wit: ‘When I need to buy a book, I don’t go into a bookshop…’ The next scene showed him sitting in his house, surfing the Net. ‘…I can get any book I want on the Internet.’ Cut to the computer screen. Lists of authors and titles scroll upwards.

To make matters worse, some online booksellers like Amazon are so successful, they inspire upcoming entrepreneurs to follow them into the online world (not invest in traditional tried-and-tested book-selling methods). Not only does Amazon sell physical books, it's also the biggest seller of e-books. Five authors including Steig Larsson (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo),

Stephenie Meyer (Twilight series) and James Patterson have each sold more than 500,000 digital books via Amazon (James Patterson over 800,000 via Amazon and over 1 million in total). John Locke is an American e-book writer said to generate a six-figure annual income purely off Amazon sales. J. A. Konrath, another American author living off e-book sales, recently had the honour of having his thriller, Shaken, picked by Amazon’s printing arm, AmazonEncore. Why is it an honour? Amazon has the e-mail addresses of everyone who has ever purchased an item from them. That’s millions of (book) buyers’ e-mail addresses! Imagine if you’re an unknown writer and Amazon decides to promote your book – you’ll become a bestselling author overnight! And their method of picking writers to promote is virtually full-proof: they check the reader reviews on your Amazon e-books.

Unfortunately, no bricks-and-mortar bookshop has that kind of mega tonnage. Traditional bookstores and book publishers don’t even have the contacts of the individual readers who have bought their books, leave alone the contacts of buyers worldwide. One of those two entities may have to adapt or die, most likely the bookseller. If online shopping is the way of the future, then the publisher can simply add an e-commerce section (shopping cart) to his official website and buyers can order from the catalogue and pay via credit card or mobile phone credit. We call this mixture of traditional and computer-age business practices ‘clicks-and-mortar’. The new Barnes & Noble is the perfect example of a clicks-and-mortar business.

Should bookshops become redundant, the author and the publisher will be no worse for wear because bookshops take massive commissions in order for their role in the book chain to be profitable. A bookshop’s commission is usually 30% – 35% while the author’s royalty is usually 10% – 20%. Sans middleman, there will be more revenue for the writer and publisher to share.

One of the new buzzwords floating around these days is ‘Book 2.0’. It is shorthand for an ongoing revolution that will change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish. Book 2.0 takes into considering such powerful market forces as Amazon. Billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame:

‘This (launching the Kindle) is the most important thing we've ever done. It's so ambitious to take something as highly evolved as the book and improve on it. And maybe even change the way people read.’

Overall, the book industry is growing. Literature is not in danger. According to BookStats, a comprehensive survey conducted by two major trade groups, US publishers generated a net revenue of $27.9 billion in 2010, a 5.6 percent increase over 2008. US Publishers sold 2.57 billion books in all formats in 2010, a 4.1 percent increase since 2008. However, the nature of the book business is changing. Some players, like book chains or traditional publishers, might have to evolve into something else or go out of business.

All of publishing has been on shifting sands over the last twenty or so years. Music publishing has also seen drastic changes, most occasioned by modern technologies like the Internet and mobile phones. Back in the days of cassette tapes, pirating or ‘dubbing’ was done by means of a stereo player with two cassette slots. Stereos that could ‘dub’ were not very common but they still gave record labels a headache. The Compact Disk, or CD, was supposed to end the piracy. This was a new, advanced, technology. The music was ‘burnt’ onto a shiny, durable, disk and read by a faint laser. Wow! That would be hard for the pirates to beat, right? Wrong. The Personal Computer began to gain currency in the 80’s and really caught on in the ‘90’s. As the ‘90’s wore on, new, sleeker and faster versions of PCs were released. Computer software also took a quantum leap. The music industry was caught with its boots off. With so many computers in homes and offices, pirating CDs became easier than ‘dubbing’ could ever have hoped to be. It was the Internet, however, that wrote finis to the old-school music industry.

Napster was the main villain of the music revolution. It allowed Internet users worldwide to download music for free. It was eventually sued and stopped the illegal file-sharing but the damage was already done. Other, smarter, file-sharing networks like Kazaa and iMesh emerged and continued distributing music for free. And then Apple invented the iPod and iTunes. Songs were now being sold for as little as $0.99 and the worst part was that the invention had come from outside the music industry. Industry players like Sony tried to make their own devices but they could never catch up to Apple’s iPods. Mobile phones also made their mark on the music industry with ringtones and ring-back tunes. Some musicians make more money from ring tones than from any other revenue stream. Live events are also key now because any song they ‘put out’ can be pirated in various ways.

Whereas there were many prominent record labels in the past, today there are only 4 major labels left in the world. These are: Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI Group and Warner Music Group. Most of the small labels you see credited on music videos are under these four.

Even previously prestigious record labels like Arista, Atlantic, Reprise, Epic, Columbia, RCA,

Geffen and Motown are now just imprints under the Big Four. The biggest record label is Universal Music Group which accounts for about 25% of all music sales and handles such artistes as Eminem, the Black Eyed Peas, Mariah Carey, 50 Cent, Gwen Stefani and Kanye West. Speaking in Jerusalem not long ago, the CEO of Universal Music Group confessed that he could not predict the future of the music business! That’s the head of the biggest music conglomerate in the world and he also doesn’t know where the business is headed!

The same goes for book publishing. I challenge any publisher to paint a picture of the print industry ten years from now. You can’t. Nobody can. We don’t even know what will happen in the next few months that will turn publishing on its head. Will Barnes & Noble go bust? Will Amazon go out of business like so many ‘dot com’ companies before it? Will Amazon purchase Barnes & Noble? Will Nokia allow all its phones to purchase and download e-books like Kindles? Will Apple come up with an ‘iReader’ or something that will rival the Kindle? Nobody knows the answers to these and similar questions. But one thing’s for sure, technology will make some of the current arms of the book industry redundant.

Remember Borders.

E-book Formats

E-books exist in various electronic formats and each format requires a special kind of software to enable the human reader to view the pages. The software in question is simply referred to an ‘ebook reader’. The most popular kind of e-book reader is the Adobe Acrobat Reader that opens books saved in Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format). Another common e-book reader is the Microsoft Reader. E-book readers are distributed over the Internet free of charge. They can be downloaded from their makers’ official sites, eg. www.microsoft.com/reader and www.adobe.com/products/acrobat, or from e-book sellers such as www.ebookmall.com and www.enovel.com.

Adobe PDF is the de facto standard for electronically published books and it best illustrates the evolution of the printed word. A PDF book looks like a conventional book except that it is not tangible and its Acrobat Reader comes with all the electronic wonders you except from e-book readers. You can zoom to a particular page, insert electronic bookmarks, consult a digital Thesaurus, adjust the font size, click on live hyperlinks, turn the leaves by either scrolling or paging and so on. PDF books can also be read on most computer operating systems, including Macintosh, Linux and Unix.

Digital books are written using word processors such a Microsoft Word and then converted into e-book format using software generally referred to as e-book compilers. The compilers, such as Adobe Acrobat for Windows are NOT given away free. Other E-book creators include Activ Ebook Compiler, E-Book Edit Pro, E-Book Generator, Pro Compiler and Calibre.

EPub - This is currently the best format and is fast becoming the standard for the industry. To view EPub files on a computer, use Adobe Digital Editions, which is free from Adobe.com.

Other players for these files include: Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle (with conversion), the Firefox browser (with an add-on), and various free programs. One advantage of the EPub format is the option for an author or seller to use Digital Rights Management so that the person you send the file to can't just attach the file to a bunch of e-mails and make your book available to other people by standard e-mail. E-books published on the Amazon Kindle also have the option of Digital Rights Management. What I liked most about the main EPub reader – Calibre E-Book Management software – is that if you close it somewhere in the middle of perusing an e-book, the next time you open that ebook, the program automatically scrolls to the last page you were on - how clever! The fonts on EPub files are also very clear – reminiscent of Microsoft ClearType™ technology.

Adobe Acrobat Files - For these files, use Adobe Reader, which is free from Adobe.com. This format is the grand daddy of e-books, and is widely used for other applications. (Technically, its beauty has always been that it uses print formats, not word processor formats, so it has been a leader in cross-platform uses - meaning that it can be used with Mac, Windows and many other Operating Systems.) Most browsers and many other programs also permit you to view Acrobat files.

How E-Books Work

‘My revolution will not be televised – it will be downloaded.’ – Alexander Nderitu, Kenyan e-book pioneer

E-books are written works that exist in digital format. Because their production does not include such expenses as printing, paper, binding, warehousing and distribution, they are sold at a fraction of the cost of physical books. Some websites, such as www.free-ebooks.net, give e-books away free of charge. Being online products, they are best marketed by ‘word of mouse’ ie. Internet channels.

E-books are sold or otherwise distributed over the Internet at high speeds. They can be downloaded onto a PC, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) like Palm Pilot, a Smartphone or an e-reader (palm-top device that is dedicated to e-books) such as the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader. Hand-helds and e-readers are gaining currency around the world for their convenience. Some of them can store hundreds of e-books at a time, so book lovers can carry a virtual library without lugging around much weight. The glowing of the screen means that you can read your books in total darkness (If, say, you are out camping). The small size of the device allows you to read your novels in restaurants, vehicles, leisure parks and almost anywhere else – day or night.

One of the most popular e-book reading programs is the Microsoft Reader. This nifty software comes with ClearType™ technology that makes the text very crisp and easy to read. The program also has a ‘Play’ button on a bar at the foot of the page that, when clicked, activates a voice feature that reads out the text for you until it’s stopped! The voice is rather mechanical and would not be confused with a human reader but who knows what the future holds? Software is upgraded all the time. Maybe in future, a user will be able to choose narrators from a range of voices (male, female, British accent etc), in a number of languages, and the machine narrators will be as eloquent as humans.

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader, an embedded system for reading electronic books, launched in the United States by prominent online bookseller Amazon.com in November 2007. The Kindle uses an electronic paper display, reads the proprietary Kindle (AZW) format (as well as several public formats), and downloads content over Amazon Whispernet (Amazon sends the e-book to your Kindle much like a friend sending an SMS to your mobile phone.)

E-BOOKS: It’s a Book, Jim, But Not as we Know it

‘E-books are the literary world’s version of fast food’ – Alexander Nderitu, Africa’s first digital

novelist

‘An eBook is considered by the industry intelligentsia to be a book that is in electronic form. It is instantaneously distributed over the Internet within seconds; Gutenberg would be impressed.’ - How E-books Work, www.enovel.com

‘Where the electronic novel really scores is in the features that elevate it beyond the limitations of a traditional printed book: at the click of a key, it will go into Large Print format, a boon for the poorly sighted and for tired eyes. Ultimately the reader, not the publisher, will select the font and size with which he or she is comfortable reading …Electronic books are smart. They can remember where you got to, so no more dog-earing, or losing bookmarks. They have all the search and find features of a word processor – enter a word or phrase and you will find the passage instantly.’ - Horror writer Peter James speaking at a conference. (See Ray Hammond’s DIGITAL BUSINESS: Surviving and Thriving in an Online World, www.hammond.co.uk , Published in book form by Hodder & Stoughton)

In 1998, history was made when the e-novel Angels of Russia was chosen as one of the five finalists for the prestigious Booker Prize. Angels of Russia was a historical novel written by

Patricia Le Roy and distributed over the Internet by Online Originals. This marked the first time that an on-line (Internet-published) book had been nominated for a major literary prize.

In 2000, Stephen King’s first e-book project experienced a hiccup when the servers were inundated with orders, stretching them to 100% capacity. The book, entitled Riding the Bullet, had had been made available only in e-book format on such websites as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. Stephen King’s initial impression:

‘While I think that the Internet and various computer applications for stories have great promise, I don’t think anything will replace the printed word and the bound book.’

Stephen King went on to participate in other e-book projects. His next e-book, The Plant, was sold in installments through an ‘honour system’ whereby downloaders promised to pay for their copies. 76% cent of readers fulfilled their promise.

In 2001, my first thriller, and probably Kenya’s first e-novel, When the Whirlwind Passes, was published online. Initially, it was a free download.

Also in 2001, India released its first e-novel, a collaborative work entitled The Motive.

Let’s fast-forward to a few years later:

October 25, 2007: Article entitled ‘Internet a Boon for Books’ appears in the Daily Metro (Nation Media House). According to it, the Internet has provided new ways of marketing, experimentation and reaching readers. Penguin has launched a web-based novel-writing competition in partnership with Amazon and Hewlett-Packard. Elsewhere, Pearson - which publishes travel books - has been digitally coding all its travel-related content so that said content can be utilized over Web and mobile phone applications.

2007: Journalist Otieno Amisi[1], secretary of the Kenya Association of Poets, launches a poetry e-book entitled Back to the Future at the Nairobi Book Fair.

November 2007: Amazon.com launches the Kindle e-book reader. Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos appears on the cover of Newsweek, holding up a Kindle. Headline: ‘Books Aren't Dead. (They're Just Going Digital.)’

December 2008: StoryMoja teams up with well-known e-commerce website Mamamikes.com so as to sell books to the Kenyan Diaspora (in addition to locally). Payments can be made via PayPal, credit card, MoneyGram, PostaPay among others. (StoryMoja later enables manuscripts to be uploaded to them directly through their website).

December 25, 2009: Amazon e-book sales overtake print for one day for the first time on

Christmas Day.

February 29, 2010: E-books become the single bestselling category in American publishing for the first time, according to a report from the Association of American Publishers, compiling sales data from US publishing houses. Total e-book sales in February amounted to $90.3 million, overtaking paperback sales which stood at $81.2 million.

2010: Sony - which also deals in e-books - announces that second quarter 2010 e-reader sales had tripled over the previous year.

March / April 2010: Apple launches the iPad and the iBookstore.

August 23, 2010: Amazon releases a statement announcing that, for the first time, the sales of Kindle e-books exceeded sales of hardcover books on its site in the second quarter of its fiscal year. For the period of April through June 2010, Amazon sold an average of 143 e-books for every 100 hardbacks; the figures for June were 180 e-books to 100 hardcovers.

January 29, 2011: ‘eBooks’ is one of the trending topics on Yahoo!

January 2011: Kindle e-books overtake paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. By May of 2011, the company announces that e-book sales are outstripping hardcover and paperback books - combined.

January 2011: Barnes & Noble shifts focus from hardcovers and paperbacks to e-books. The influential bookseller tries to re-invent itself as a seller of book downloads, reading devices and apps.

March 2011: ‘The future is digital,’ says Kenya Literature Bureau CEO, Eve Obara as KLB launches e-books into the local market ‘ahead of any of the other players in the business.’

In 2011, the rise of e-books is believed to be the main cause of the demise of the giant bricks-and-mortar bookseller, Borders (which took too long to join the e-retailing and electronic book markets). The liquidation of Borders Group sends shockwaves across the book world. Even its main rival, Barnes & Noble, gains little from the folding of the fabled Borders book chain. Barnes & Noble operates 717 superstores and owns the popular Nook e-book reader. Borders had over 400 stores.

2011: E-books become the hottest topic among major publishers, booksellers and other book industry stakeholders. Are e-books ‘cannibalizing’ print? Will bricks-and-mortar bookshops end up selling to the rats? Or are e-books overrated? Do traditional bookstores need to make some adjustments in order to survive in the eBook Age?

2011: E-book versions of popular books like The Da Vinci Code and Rich Dad, Poor Dad proliferate Kenyan computers. They are free, or very cheap, downloads. A blog known as Nairobi Ebooks (http://nairobibooks.blogspot.com ) sells e-books at just Kshs.10 a pop!

October 2011: When the Whirlwind Passes and The Moon is Made of Green Cheese make their Amazon Kindle debut.

2011: Amazon shakes the world of literature yet again by launching its own imprint, AmazonEncore. According to the online giant: ‘AmazonEncore is a new program whereby

Amazon will use information such as customer reviews on Amazon.com to identify exceptional, overlooked books and authors with more potential than their sales may indicate. Amazon will then partner with the authors to re-introduce their books to readers through marketing support and distribution into multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon Kindle Store, Amazon.com Books Store, Audible.com, and national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers.  ‘Amazon gives the self-published a second life,’ says USA Today

Amazon's major rivals, Barnes & Noble and Borders, list AmazonEncore titles on their websites and say that, depending on demand, they may carry them in their physical stores as well.

2011? : Charles Karia, a Kenyan schoolteacher and blogger, publishes an e-book entitled A

Weed in Paradise. In related news Publishing Editor Barrack Muluka says e-books are picking up (in Kenya) as fibre optic cables improve local Internet experience (Quoted in Saturday magazine).

November 25, 2011: Article in The East African Standard newspaper talks of local government departments and libraries digitalizing their documents (‘Libraries and publishers go digital to increase efficiency’). Digitalization involves scanning books, reports and other documents and placing them in an electronic retrieval system. With e-books, libraries will be able to offer e-lending services.

Late 2011: A school in Kilgoris, rural Kenya, is featured on Citizen TV for its use of electronic ‘tablets’ (e-book reading devices). The devices (a donation from an NGO) are being used alongside traditional textbooks but according to one teacher there, a single tablet can hold an entire library of books, making the textbooks potentially irrelevant.

December 9, 2011: Article entitled ‘Smart phones to drive up sale of e-books’ appears in the Daily Nation. According to it, affordable smart phones could enable a boom in e-books sales.

Internationally, e-book sales grew by 116.5% while print fell. By 2014, the article went on to say, 50% of all phones sold are expected to be ‘smart’. Ministry of Information to procure cheap tablet for high school students. Former Apprentice Africa contestant Joyce Mbaya’s e-book, Gibebe, to sell on Amazon Kindle. Master Publishing MD, Agatha Verdadero, is quoted as saying e-book trends as seen in the West are expected to reach Kenya circa 2014.

---

[1] Died on January 16^th 2008