Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize: A striptease

The Winner/Chief Guest: Jerusha Kananu Marete, 'Echoes of Military Souls'

Your truly, Sant Mark, 'A Funeral Dress for Nyasuguta', with the esteemed writer and musician, Tee Ngugi

24^th/August/2023

Venue? Alliance Française, Nairobi. The event? Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize. The organisers? Mystery Publishers. The forward thinking companies that have come on board as the sponsors? CLAVIS Fashion Hub, U.M. Gallery, kamaNu, GL, Sayari Insurance Agencies, Alliance Française (and the French Embassy), and Nuria Bookstore. Subsequent stories will reveal why these are forward thinking companies.

Well, you can always tell how big an event is by looking at the list of speakers and the notable attendees therein. The speakers: Prof. Mugubi, Prof. Wangari Mwai, Prof. Ngugi, Prof. Austin Bukenya, Alice Kairichi, Hon. Dr. John Kanyuithia Mutunga, Prof. PLO Lumumba, Prof. Mohammed Bakari, Justice (Retired) Aaron Ringera, Dr. Muthomi Thiankolu, Dr. Gameli Tordzro, Vincent de Paul, Ezekiel Machogu… eminent persons through and through. Notable attendees: Tee Ngugi, Smitta Smitten, John Sibi-Okumu, Empress Ciku…

Of course, an excellent event is also judged by the quality of scheduled entertainment: Kamanu Band, Humble Buoy Dancers, Sant Mark (yours truly), Swinton Nkatha, Qibuchi, Obert Dube, Dr. Gameli Tordzro, Jerusha Marete, Kimani Gichau…

The nominees to the prize: Dancan Ouma (City of Cannibals), Vincent de Paul (First Love), Jerusha Kananu Marete (Echoes of Military Souls - is a power-packed package of art that promises to keep you on the edge of your seat. It is a roller coaster stream of emotion. The poems forcefully remind us that soldiers lay down their lives for fellow humans. But do we really value this singular sacrifice?… )

And to the finale (fireworks), the winner of the 2022 Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize… (more stories around the event next week)

(Meanwhile, get my short stories collection at: https://nuriakenya.com/product/a-funeral-dress-for-nyasuguta-by-mark-mwangi/)

Comments

My-Once Molly (Praying for a Rainbow),

Dear Molly, I hope you are ok and are keeping safe in these floods. As for me, I am heartbroken. I am in pain. My mind, my body, my spirit aches. I am numb with grief. As is the nation of Kenya. The picture just won’t get out of our minds – the father, trudging stoically, his dead, muddy son slung over his shoulder. It’s a devastating image… the screams, elsewhere, as a boat capsizes, the swollen river swallows a lorry… Izrael has visited the land. Dear Molly, a while back, the nation faced drought. Then, images of dead livestock, emaciated men, women and children, parched, cracked earth, haunted our screens. Elsewhere where there was a glut in food production, the farmers cried for their fellow starving countrymen. They demanded for lorries to traverse the rutted roads and take the produce to their brethren… collectively, we prayed for rain. Dear Molly... will we ever catch a break as Kenya? The Covid-19 pandemic that paralysed lives and livelihoods in 2020 as we recovered from th...

My-Once Molly (thinking of Valentine),

My-Once Molly… the girl who broke my heart, the one who got away, the one who promised me the world and left me to survive alone – typical of our Kenyan politicians… I hope you are good. Now, as February – the month of love – lurks about, I find myself thinking of you. Thing is, my dear Molly, I have new neighbours. A young couple, very much in love like we once were. The young lady, her name is Val… maybe Valentine… I don’t know. This Val, a spirited girl with rich, deep, heaving laughter - almost like yours. Her smile… ah! You should see it. The shine of the morning sun distilling the dew upon cool meadows… I am totally in love with her. Alarmingly, she teases me much and I am getting ideas… Molly, dear, wherever you are, please pray for me… the temptation is too much. If you don’t, the frail creature that I am may fall. This, despite having numerous songs in my playlist to warn me. Invariably, Majengo – that infamous locale – does a dishonourable appearance in most of them… ‘Maj...

My Once-Molly (A Theft),

Hi Molly. How are you? The floods are here and I almost drowned – should have gone for swimming lessons as you often times suggested. Anyways, I now walk with a motorcycle tire’s tube and pump in my backpack. DIY lifesaver gear as instructed by Grade 3 CBC cohort. Dear Molly, as I informed you last time, I shifted. Partly, the floods, partly, change, partly, finances. This Creative Writing journey is taking a bit of time to yield fruits, but I hang on, consoled by the words of one Ernest Hemingway, whose ending was horrible: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Where I shifted to, is a downgrade. ‘Mabati’ rooms – plenty of stories, though as living is communal and one’s business is everyone’s business. Such as the recent theft – a woofer, charger, ‘meko’ gas, a bar of soap, and a bucket of maize flower - that’s how ‘flour’ is pronounced, FIY. Must have been pretty hungry, them thieves. How it unfolded. A bit of commotion early mor...

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