By Alexander Nderitu, author of When the Whirlwind Passes
(This work of non-fiction is gleaned from Nderitu's forthcoming biography, Coffee & Newspapers, which is tentatively slated for release in 2023.)
August, 2001
On the ‘JOBS’ notice board at Odeon Cinema in
downtown Nairobi, I spotted the following advert:
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WANTED:
Journalists, talented freelance writers and contributors. Earn extra cash
writing stories, articles, testimonials etc for Christian and leisure
magazines.
We are
located at New Rwathia Building, Racecourse Road, Opp. St. Peters Primary
School, Mezzanine Flr. Rm. 9.
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I was intrigued. I had relocated from Nyeri town in
Central Province to ‘the big city’ in order to find a job as a techie but more
importantly, to pursue my dream of becoming an author. I had studied IT in
college but my destiny lay in literature. In 1998, after reading a sensational
article about the murder of an Italian fashion baron (orchestrated by his
estranged wife), I had written a fictional account of the case, set in Kenya. I
had brought the manuscript of the story, which I titled When the Whirlwind Passes, to Nairobi with me.
I stared at the ad again. I wondered about the
authenticity of the job. Nairobi was the busiest city in East Africa, with a
low employment rate and high crime rate. Numerous ‘employment bureaus’
operating out of tiny offices derogatorily referred to as ‘shoe boxes’ took
advantage of rural-urban migration to exploit job seekers. They charged a
non-refundable registration fee, usually Kshs 500 to 1,500 (USD$ 5.00 to 15.00)
and then they’d alert you to job opportunities (that they usually found in
newspapers or other public sources of information). Their alerts rarely matched
the qualifications of their clients. For instance, if you had studied Computer
Science/Information Technology, they didn’t care whether you were a computer programmer,
operator, website designer, systems analyst, engineer, salesperson or
repairman. They’d just send you to any job that involved a computer - like a
Front Office desk job at a hotel – and claim they had done their bit. Their real business was to collect the
irredeemable registration fees.
I had tried the ‘employment bureaus’ when I was
virginal in job-seeking matters but, of course, they couldn’t match me with any
decent job. It soon dawned on me that they couldn’t have gotten Bill Gates a
job in the software business, and I stopped bothering with them. But the ad at
Odeon Cinema, at the junction of Latema Rd and Tom Mboya St, got my attention
because it was about writing – my
dream career. I jotted down the information in the box above and asked the
job-seeker standing next to me if he knew where Racecourse Rd was. He pointed
up Tom Mboya St and mumbled a Byzantine route in Kiswahili. I thanked him and
began making my way up the overcrowded, sun-swept street.
Racecourse Rd was not just further downtown, it was
in perhaps the seediest part of the metropolis, not far from the infamous River
Road. This part of Nairobi is dominated by congested shops, matatu/bus termini, ugly buildings, chokoras (street children), noise and
smog. It is the national headquarters of music/movie piracy, dodgy trade, and
cheap 24-hour brothels.
I weaved my way through the viscous crowds, feeling
like a character in Meja Mwangi’s Going
Down River Road, and finally located the place I was looking for. There
were three people, one man and two women, in the room when I knocked and pushed
the door open. The smell of newsprint papers and printing ink immediately
assailed my nostrils. It was an unremarkable room with bare furniture. Two of
the three people were sitting around a wooden table while the other one, an elderly
lady, was sitting apart and clearly not part of the operations. The room was
littered with newspapers such as the Daily
Nation and the East African Standard,
as well as a slew of other cheaper publications that I had never seen before.
Stacked up against the wall were freshly-printed greyish-coloured batches of
another publication I heard never seen – The
Instigator. They were tied up with sisal strings, clearly awaiting
delivery. I introduced myself and mentioned the writer ad. The man, Kosgei, said
that they were indeed looking for article contributors for their paper, The Instigator. He was tall, with a
narrow head and large teeth. They were looking for human interest stories,
especially political ones. Something entertaining. They payment was Kshs 300/=
(USD$ 3.00) per article, regardless of length. It was a very informal
environment. I was glad I hadn’t brought my CV. The younger lady (Jane Chebet)
was chewing gum and the geezer was dozing off in her chair. I could hear the matatus in the nearby OTC bus terminus
revving and honking. A fourth person (Kariuki Ngugi) walked in. He had been
‘distributing copy’. He and the elderly lady left. (I would later learn from
Chebet that Ngugi and the woman were an item, which was odd because she looked
old enough to be his mother.) I asked Kosgei if I could get at least Kshs 500
per article. He told me I would have discuss that with a Mr. Kiprop who was
currently out of office. He gave me a free copy of The Instigator and I left.
On the matatu
to the middle-class South ‘C’ Estate where I was living with my older sister,
Caroline, I read my Instigator. It
was very slim - about twelve pages, all told. The articles, while entertaining,
appeared to have taken liberties with the truth, and some bylines simply read ‘by
Instigator Team’. (I would later find out that even where names appeared, they
were often fake.) The overall quality of the publication was poor and the
photos were horrendous, like a photocopy of an ID that’s too dark to properly
make out the person.
I got home as darkness was falling. I had to let
myself in as I was the first of my housemates to arrive. There were four of us
in the house – my older sister, a cousin, my sister’s best friend, and myself.
The house, a typical two-story Nairobi estate residence, cost Kshs 20,000 (USD$
200) a month torent. Since there were four of us, all in our twenties, we each
paid Kshs 5,000. For privacy, I took the Servants Quarter in the back yard. My
girlfriend would sometimes travel from Nyeri (where we met in college) to
Nairobi to visit me. A supreme irony about the house in South ‘C’ was that
while we seemed to be living admirably, we had virtually no furniture! There
was a sofa set in the living room and a computer station in the dining room but
that was about it. One evening, a college friend of my sister’s dropped her off
and came in for a look-see. He strode
into the house, talking on his bulky mobile phone. He scanned the cavernous living
room as he spoke. When he finally rang off, he looked pitifully at me and
asked, ‘Were you guys robbed?’ The lack of investment in furniture was
occasioned by the temporariness of our living arrangements. Two of the girls
were engaged to be married and I was job-hunting so it was just a matter of
time before we all went our separate ways.
 |
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Alexander
Nderitu in the house with ‘virtually no furniture’ (2001)
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The next day, I returned to The Instigator office. Kiprop still wasn’t there but Ngugi was. I
suggested that since their wages were unacceptably low, could I submit several
articles per issue? They were OK with that proposition.
Ngugi took me on an eye-opening tour of the main
streets of Nairobi on a devilishly hot day. We studied the nature of magazines
and newspapers on sale. Many newspaper racks displayed a large number of
soft-porn magazines. Yellow press publications with such banner headlines as,
‘I HAD HOT SEX WITH MY STEPSON!’, ‘MY GIRLFRIEND IS SPERM-CRAZY’ and
’60-YEAR-OLD CATHOLIC PRIEST MADE ME PREGNANT!’ had pride of place amongst
slews of local and international publications. Ngugi knew most of the vendors
and vice versa, so we had the privilege of perusing the publications and then
returning them.
I first met Henry Kiprop when I was looking for Ngugi. Kiprop was sitting on the edge of the crummy little office as Jane was preparing to close for the day. The sun was setting and it was darkish in the office. Kiprop was a keen-eyed, outgoing soul of Kalenjin extraction. He had the hardened palms of a farm worker and the inner reaches of his black lips were conspicuously pink. An almost bald head sat squarely on the round shoulders of a muscular frame like that of a light-weight boxer. He introduced himself to me as ‘the man behind those alarming headlines’. He was referring to the eye-catching headlines that were de rigueur in the informal press. (The forerunner to modern-day ‘click-bait’). Some of the headings I had seen on the rags that day included: a senior male politician from Central had impregnated a senior female politician from Ukambani, a Kisii presidential candidate had been caught red-handed with a peer’s wife, a goat in Nakuru town had spoken on President Moi’s succession, and a much-feared Kalenjin politician was building a sprawling underground palace. I asked Kiprop how they verified stories such as the one about the talking goat, seeing as how they had not appeared in the mainstream press. Kiprop shrugged and said it was just entertainment anyway. I told the guys that their outrageous articles would not be believed and that they were giving their publications a bad name. I later found out that the public already had a name for that kind of fake, sensational journalism: the gutter press.
I asked if they would be willing to pay more than Kshs 300 per article. Kiprop offered me Kshs 1,500 to write the whole paper. It was just a few pages anyway, of exaggerated stories. Entertainment. Something for idlers and matatu passengers to pass the time with. The average cost of a publication was just Kshs 10! Although I was in need of money, I decided to contribute a few articles each week primarily to see my stories in print, and being read by commuters all over the city.
September,
2001
Politics in Kenya being a blood sport, I refused to
write cheap political articles for the gutter press. Because I wanted my real
name to appear on the byline, I wrote actual news articles on topical issues. I
would print them out in the house at South ‘C’ and take a hard copy to Kiprop.
I even offered to freely add some graphics to the articles. Kiprop would peruse
the articles and say, ‘Good. I’ll just twist the heading.’ Twisting headings
was his forté. He would playfully
threaten his friends with, ‘I will put you in a headline!’
One of
the more memorable articles I wrote concerned an overview of the more notorious
international intelligence agencies. It was titled Who Needs The Secret Services of The World? When it came out in
print, I noticed that Kiprop hadn’t ‘twisted the heading’ or changed a single
word. ‘There was nothing to edit,’ he told me later, flattering my ego.
One day,
I turned up at the office with my manuscript for When the Whirlwind Passes. I wanted to know if it was possible to
publish it using the same printing presses that churned out the low-end
magazines and ‘newspapers’. My colleagues laughed out loud. ‘Huyu ametuletea riwaya nzima tuchapishe!’
(‘This one has brought us a whole novel to publish!’), Chebet bellowed
in Kiswahili, throwing her head back. It was a common reaction in a country
that had no market for books outside of school material. Back in my hometown of
Nyeri, I once intimated to a neighbor that I was going to be a novelist and he
shook his head as if someone had died. ‘Kenyans don’t buy books,’ he had said.
‘The only things they buy are beer and condoms.’ While Kiprop could not publish
When
the Whirlwind Passes, he
published a whole-page article on me and my literary pursuits. It was titled,
‘KENYA’S YOUNGEST AUTHOR.’
The ‘alternative
press’ publications sold like hot cakes but the business was not lucrative. Not
only was the retail price too low but the publishers relied on ‘brokers’ to
distribute the publications to newsstands all over Nairobi, and beyond. The
publications were thus sold to the ‘brokers’ at a discount. Two of the largest
‘brokers’ were located in Mfangano Court Building. One was a brown
thirty-something woman, married, who had the smoothest of skins. The other one,
also a woman, was a slatternly, middle-aged mountain of flesh whom I would
often find gorging on fries in her dapper office, and who reminded me of ‘Sally
Spectra’ in TV’s The Bold and The
Beautiful.
One
evening, as I walked from Sally Spectra’s office back to The Instigator, I noticed that there was some kind of tension in the air. A lot of
people were peering into the windows of electronics shops, watching the glowing
TV screens, and there seemed to be more chattering amongst strangers than
usual. When I reached the office on Racecourse Rd, Chebet and Ngugi were glued to
a small battery-powered radio. The radio was a knock-off. It was branded
Philibs, instead of Phillips.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘Seems like some planes have
crashed in America,’ Chebet said. ‘Kenya Airways has immediately suspended all
flights.’
Kiprop
wasn’t there to pay me and I had only Kshs 100 in my pocket. I left for South
‘C’, tired and hungry. We didn’t have a TV in the house and the computer wasn’t
connected to the Internet. But by the time I hit town the next morning, the
news was all over town: two hi-jacked airliners had crashed into the Twin
Towers in New York City, another one into the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and
another one in a field in Pennsylvania. The
Twin Towers that famously housed the World Trade Centre, had crumbled like the
walls of Jericho. It was the worst terrorist attack on US soil in history.
November,
2001
The gutter press’ modus operandi bothered me a great deal. The myriad publications
that came off the presses had the words ‘Fully registered at the G.P.O as a
newspaper’ printed at the back, but everyone knew that wasn’t so. They were so
informal that a paper’s name could be changed on a whim. What shocked me most,
however, was the fake news.
We were wary of being visited the City Council or
even the intelligence agencies. Kiprop, who was liable to sing war songs when
drunk, claimed to have an uncle in the national intelligence service.
‘He
calls me to his office from time to time,’ he once told me. ‘Usually when he
sees something alarming in the publications.’
It was natural for the spies to be interested,
since the papers majored in politics and the General Elections were not far off.
But for the most part, the articles carried in the informal press were products
of their authors’ imagination.
While strolling downtown with Kiprop one day, I was
introduced to Thumbi, a gentle soul who published a Christian magazine downtown.
In subsequent weeks, this giant with bifocals and a trimmed beard tossed me
nuggets of wisdom and gave me much encouragement to continue writing. He was
middle-aged but he did not address me with the authority that older gentlemen
usually talk to youngsters. One time, Kiprop and I were inside his office where
the next month’s issue was being typeset.
'You know what you guys should do?’ Kiprop ventured. ‘You should put Osama Bin Laden’s face on the cover of the magazine with the headline, “IS OSAMA READY TO GET SAVED?” ‘
Everyone burst out laughing.
‘Don’t bring those gutter press tactics here!’ the lady editor of the faith-based magazine bellowed, wagging a finger.
Following the September 11 attacks in New York,
Saudi Arabian-born terrorist Osama Bin Laden’s bearded face had monopolized the
covers of Time, Newsweek and many
other magazines. The American president, George Bush Jr, had organized revenge
attacks against Osama Bin Laden’s supposed strongholds in Afghanistan. Being his father’s son, Bush had also put
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in his cross-hairs, although the connection
between Iraq and 9/11 was as clear as mud.
I was a young man in a hurry. While still
contributing articles to The Instigator, I
intimated to Ngugi (who run a separate rag of his own) that I wanted to start
my own magazine. It was fairly cheap to do what he and Kiprop did, and I was
going to write, design and typeset the entire thing myself. However, I didn’t
want it to be a dirt-cheap, poor-quality rag that readers would skim and then
literally throw away. I wanted it to be coloured and cost Kshs 20 or 30, not
10. Ngugi shook his head. He said there was an existing market for 10-bob rags.
I risked missing out on that market. He also warned me that adding colours
would increase production costs. Two-colour would be OK, but beyond that I
would have to opt for full-colour and the cost would be untenable. I resolved
to create a new entertainment-based paper which would be called Sensation. The name would appear in blue
while the text would naturally be black.
The release of the maiden issue of Sensation was marred by delays. First, I
had a problem with my Epson printer at home, then the printing press in town
did their work the way a chameleon walks, and finally the weekend leaped at us
(Weekends are low points in street selling, contrary to popular belief). The
street debut was postponed for a week. By the time ‘the new magazine with a
blue banner’ hit the streets, the news it carried had gone stale. As Ngugi had
predicted, the higher cost of the magazine also hurt sales. I eventually ended
giving away most copies to friends for free. Sensation sunk in the best tradition of the Titanic.
December
2001
The scandalous publications had also caught the
attention of the nation’s leaders. Plans were hatched to pass laws that would
silence them for good. However, the proposed laws were so draconian, they would
have the effect of muzzling the press in general and making publishing a
near-impossible enterprise. Naturally, the media riled against what they saw as
a ploy to gag the press ahead of the 2002 General Elections. To lobby against
the impending Media Bill, the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) invited MPs to a
dinner event at the swish Stanley Hotel in the CBD. At the time, my elder sister,
Caroline, was the most famous ‘performance poet’ in the country. The media
described her art as ‘dramatized poetry’. (Such performances are now referred
to as ‘Spoken Word Poetry’). KUJ invited Caroline to perform at the event. She took
me along to help sell her first poetry book, Caroline Verses. I sat at the table just outside the door to the
main hall, copies of the book arranged in front of me. The then KUJ
Secretary-General, a moustached Ezekiel Mutua, stood across from me, welcoming
guests and chit-chatting with the VIPs who were streaming in. At one point, he
came over to me and told me that I would sell more books if I engaged the
passers-by. Caroline wowed the audience by appearing on stage dressed in an
outfit entirely made of newspapers! The keynote speaker was Prof. PLO Lumumba,
an orator, legal expert and lecturer. He began his speech by reciting the
famous Edmund Burke quote:
'(There are) Three Estates in Parliament;
but in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important
far than they all.’
I was familiar with the quote, made in 1787,
because I had read about it in a Jeffery Archer novel, itself titled The Fourth Estate.
Meanwhile, I had been reading a lot about emerging
e-book trends around the world from UK magazines such as The Writer. I knew that getting a novel manuscript accepted by a
mainstream publisher was a tall order. One day, I had light-bulb moment: I was
going to introduce the e-book trend to Kenya! I was already an IT expert. I
converted my manuscript to e-book format and uploaded it to and American online
sales platform called EBookMall.com. When
the whirlwind Passes thus became the first novel to emerge from ‘cyber
space’.
June 2002
Members of Parliament did the unthinkable by passing
a controversial bill seemingly designed to muzzle the press. Officially termed the
Statutory Law (Miscellaneous Amendment) Act, 2002, the law required newspaper
publishers to execute a bond of over Kshs 1 million (USD$ 10,000), which meant
that small players were automatically excluded from the industry. Vendors
selling ‘unbonded’ newspapers faced a 6-year jail sentence. Publishers were
also required to deposit at least two copies of every book or newspaper they
published to the registrar of books and newspapers. Failure to comply would
attract a 3-5 year jail term and a fine of Kshs 1 million.
Around this time, I parted way with my ‘friends in
low places’ after we argued about money – or more accurately, the lack of it.
The Millionaires Club we were not.
Let the record show that, contrary to popular
belief, the KANU gov’t did not support or sponsor the gutter press. The
alternative press was run by a hodgepodge of individuals looking to make a fast
buck. KANU figures such as President Moi and his side-kick, Nicholas Biwott
(then Minister for Trade and Industry), suffered as much from the libelous
content of the cheap publications as anyone.
Let the record also show that although I did submit
articles for informal press publication, I did not fudge on news. Mine were
accurate ‘features’ that I was only too eager to see in print. The gutter press
may not have been the best platform for my journalistic works but I had no
other outlet at the time. And where I come from, half a loaf is better than no
bread.
November 2002
On leaving the yellow press, I became a Web
Designer. I also became a contributor to Kelele.com.
Arguably Kenya’s first entertainment website, Kelele.com
was a division of a larger tech empire that had been founded by a Kenyan
entrepreneur on returning from the United States. My main role at Kelele, which
was based at Norwich Union Towers near the Hilton, was writing film reviews. Reviewers,
mostly from the big newspapers, and I would go to Kenya Cinema Plaza on
Thursdays and privately watch the box office attractions that would be opening
that weekend. It paid only slightly more than the gutter press gig but was much
more prestigious and enjoyable.
One day, as I was arriving home, I found my sister
tying up a conversation with a journalist from the then newly-fangled Saturday magazine of the Daily Nation. The Daily Nation was the flagship brand of the Nation Media Group (NMG),
a media colossus headquartered in Nairobi. I mentioned to the journo that I had
authored a digital novel that was almost certainly the first in the country, if
not the continent. An avid reader herself, she was interested in reviewing it
and organized a meeting at her place of work.
I had
the bad fortune to find a rude female attendant when I stepped off the lift at
the second floor of the curiously-shaped Nation building. I noticed the man in
front of me stop to write his name and other statistics onto an exercise book
and, naively assuming that all visitors must sign in, I picked up the attached
biro pen after him and bent down to scribble my essentials.
‘Whaddya think you’re writing!?’ yelled the female attendant with an
intensity that could
have caused a Magnitude 6 earthquake.
‘Er…my…’ I was about to say ‘name’, then I realized I was on shaky
ground and changed direction.
‘I’ve got a letter for the editor,’ I said.
‘These books are for staff
members!’ yelled Madame Serpent. ‘The reception is over there.’
She pointed behind me and I was glad to turn around and head towards
the less rude and infinitely more attractive staff behind the glass screen of
the reception.
Saturday
magazine later published a review of When
the Whirlwind Passes. The reviewer described it as ‘Beautifully written…If
you can access the book, please do. It will be worth the energy.’
July 2014
Fast-forward. I had by now authored and
self-published two more books: a poetry collection titled The Moon is Made of Green Cheese (2008) and a short story
collection titled Kiss, Commander,
Promise (2011). My three books were available as e-books and, via a new
technology known as Print-On-Demand, as paperbacks as well.
The 20th Commonwealth Games took place in
Glasgow, Scotland, between 23rd July and 3rd August. As a
‘cultural accompaniment’ to the Games, a project dubbed Commonwealth Poetry
Postcards was mooted in the UK. It involved getting one poem from each
participating country/territory and publishing it on postcards for attendees,
in addition to broadcasting it on radio. My poem Someone in Africa Loves You (from The Moon is Made of Green Cheese) represented Kenya.
Africa was in the throes of a literary renaissance.
A new, exciting generation of scribes was emerging. Literary journals,
festivals, salons, conferences and other events came to birth. In Kenya, the revolution
was best exemplified by Binyavanga Wainaina and the Kwani? journal he had helped
found. As one who had ‘introduced e-novels to Africa’, I was able to attract a
healthy amount of publicity and invites to literary events.
The Daily
Nation had started another colourful pullout magazine dubbed Zuqka.
It was ostensibly aimed at the youth demographic. The editor of Zuqka was interested in my literary
journey. After a brief e-mail exchange, she gave me an appointment at the Nation
building. When I got there, she was unavailable but she had arranged for
another female journo to interview me. After the Q&A session, the interviewer
led me to another room for a photo shoot. I overheard her tell the photographer
that it was going to be for the cover. Since I then worked as a techie at an
NGO, I was wearing a suit. I could see that the photographer wasn’t pleased
with that. After a few clicks, he asked me whether I would be willing to come
back the next day in more appropriate attire.
‘Zuqka is a pullout from a newspaper,’ he
explained. ‘If we put you there in a suit, that page won’t look any different
from the rest of the paper.’
‘What
do you suggest?’ I inquired.
‘Something
African. The way Ngugi wa Thiong’o dresses. A dashiki or something.’
I
really didn’t want to spend two days at the media house as I had IT work
waiting for me at the office, which was on Ngong Rd.
‘What
if you just take a close-up of my face like you did with Serah Mwihaki?’
Serah
is a scriptwriter who had graced the Zuqka
cover before.
‘That’s
a very good example!’ the camera-wielding dude said. ‘You see, Serah has
dreadlocks. She even has colours in her hair. She looks like an artist! You look like a boss.’
I
went home and came back the next day dressed in a more ethnic fashion. The
photographer was happy.
The next Friday, I was woken up early in the
morning by my mobile phone ringing. It was a former college buddy calling from
Eastern Kenya:
‘Dude, Zuqka magazine is all about you today!’ he said, laughing like a
hyena.
Not only was I on the cover, I
also occupied two whole pages inside
arguably the most widely-distributed entertainment magazine in the country. The
calls continued to come in throughout the day. When I entered the office on
Ngong Rd, my colleagues erupted in applause.
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| The Zuqka cover |
January 2015
I met up
with an acquaintance who had founded an arts-related NGO. At the heart of his
arts promotion setup was a sprawling complex outside Nairobi that included
rooms, a hotel, a rooftop performance site, and a basketball court. We sat at
the Java Restaurant near the Supreme Court buildings, sipping coffee.
‘There’s this idea I’ve been having for some time now,’ he said. ‘It’s
for an intensive writer-training camp. A residency. I have a facility in Rift
Valley. A secluded place where a groups of artistes can hold workshops and
trainings and such. I am especially keen on literature. Initially, I wanted to
approach Kwani? I know the administrators. We both go to Ford Foundation for
funding. But I’d rather work with you. In any case, right now, you’re bigger than
Kwani?’
December 2017
My
father had died at the age of 73. I had moved back to my hometown of Nyeri. As
I took a walk one evening, I received a call from the Business Daily, yet another publication of the mammoth NMG. The
caller was some kind of fact-checker. Every year, the Business Daily publishes a prestigious list of the Top 40 Under 40
men and women of that year. I had been nominated and the caller had some
follow-up questions. He wasn’t interested in the commercial aspect of my
writing as much as the societal impact.
What difference had I made in my community that year? I answered his questions
as I walked slowly past an unending a parade of evergreen trees.
Towards
the end of December, the Business Daily ‘Top
40 Under 40 Men’ issue came out and I was in it. I dedicated the award to my
late father.
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| Alexander Nderitu at the ‘Top 40 Under 40’
award ceremony |
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Alexander Nderitu is a writer, poet, playwright and critic. His work has been shortlisted for a Douglas Coupland Short Story Award, Assitej SA Scriptwriting prize and the December 2020 Collins Elesiro Literary Prize. He is a recipient of an apexart New York Fellowship and a Business Daily ‘Top 40 Under 40 Men’ award. His signature thriller, When the Whirlwind Passes is now available in paperback and can be ordered here: www.AlexanderNderitu.com
