The newly appointed Mauritanian Prime Minister has ruled out the inclusion of selected opposition parties in his new cabinet line-up. Yayha Ould Ahmed El Waghf, who had recently lost the parliament's confidence, learnt bitter lessons for giving excessive powers to the minority parties. A no-confidence motion against his government has to do with his inclusion of political kingpins associated with the former President Maaouya Ould Taya in the government.

Ignacio Milam Tang, until now Equatoguinean Ambassador in Spain, has been named new Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, according to government sources in Malabo. He replaces what the President has called the "worst government ever" in the country.

Participation has now become an established orthodoxy in development thinking and practice. But what exactly is it and how best should be pursued in development interventions to improve the livelihoods of the poor remains contestable. This document outlines two studies conducted in two World Vision rural development programmes in Central Tanzania to analyse the effectiveness of participatory development processes.

South African President and SADC mediator on the Zimbabwean crisis, Thabo Mbeki has been quoted by media as admitting that President Mugabe who won the one man presidential race boycotted by the opposition MDC party is an illegitimate leader and that is why a government of national unity was necessary.

Africa's only female President Liberian Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has urged world leaders to back targeted sanctions against members of Zimbabwe ZANU-PF Government. President Sirleaf was speaking to reporters in South Africa during her short visit to attend the 6th Nelson Mandela annual lecture at Walter Sisulu square in Kliptown, Soweto.

The Federal Government has announced the suspension of the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) designed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo for poverty reduction.

An emerging initiative could pave the way for fundamental change in the way forests are managed, boosting efforts to fight both poverty and climate change, says research published today by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

A Security Council measure intended to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe failed when two of the 15-member body's permanent members –- China and the Russian Federation –- voted against a draft resolution that would also have imposed an arms embargo on the country, as well as a travel ban and financial freeze against the President and 13 senior Government and security officials considered most responsible for the violent crisis there.

Portugal has cancelled $393.4 million of Mozambique’s debt. An additional loan agreement of $148 million was promptly signed. Mozambique gained its independence in 1975, after 500 years of Portuguese colonisation. The new government inherited an economy that was under-developed and poor, with 90% of its population illiterate. To reverse this situation, the government embarked on ambitious development programmes with the view to reducing poverty and developing the economy.

We, 39 members of the Africa Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and our partners from Canada, the United Kingdom and United States of America participating in its tenth Annual Strategy meeting call upon African governments to put in place alternative mining regime, contracts and investment standards for the mining sector in Africa in order to optimise national benefits including integrated national development, protection of community rights and the environment.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/387/49363betweenrock.jpgAt the summit of the African Union in Ghana in July 2007, Robert Mugabe was given a standing ovation. Later he went outside the conference to deliver a roaring anti–imperialist speech at a huge public rally. At the Nkrumah square Mugabe was hailed as one of the most steadfast revolutionary leaders in Africa. One year later, at the African Union Conference in Cairo, Egypt, Robert Mugabe was shunned by most leaders and condemned by those who opposed the authoritarian and dictatorial methods of rule. One day prior to the conference Mugabe had been sworn in as President after a non-election where he was the only candidate. This was a far cry from his initial inauguration in April 1980 when he was sworn in as Prime Minister before a throng of hundreds of thousands. Bob Marley had led the popular anti-racist and anti-imperialist forces to this celebration and had sung, Africans a liberate Zimbabwe. By June 2008 Robert when Mugabe was sworn in his regime had degenerated from a party associated with the legacies of Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah to an organization associated with the militarism and repression of Mobutu Sese Seko and Hastings Banda. Working peoples all across the region led and inspired by the Congress of South African Trade Unions opposed the Mugabe government and called for its isolation. Nelson Mandela was moved to declare that one was witnessing a “tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe.”

It is this failure that needs to be contextualized not simply as a Zimbabwean phenomenon, but as one of the forms and content of politics and political engagement in an era of economic depression and discredited neo-liberalism. All over the African continent the poor and oppressed have borne the brunt of the food crisis, the energy crisis, the health pandemics, and the crisis of the financial markets. This is the cataclysm that is being termed the worst capitalist crisis since the depression of the 1930’s. While spokespersons for capitalism such as Alan Greenspan have noted the depth of the contradictions between capitalist wealth and the impoverishment of the peoples of the globe, the G8 discourse on increasing aid flows block serious analysis of the impact of the capitalist depression in Africa and other parts of the downtrodden world. Food riots and other forms of spontaneous expressions of resistance have been taking place in the absence of clear organizational forms to respond to this capitalist depression. It is in South Africa where the workers are organizing against the high food prices with marches.

Inside a country such as Zimbabwe the internal political contradictions and the dire economic conditions serve to compound the oppression of the Zimbabwean peoples. It is this oppression that calls for both clear analysis and action on the part of those who want support the oppressed and are not accessories to their oppression by overt and covert support for the Mugabe regime. The Zimbabwean working peoples have been well organized and it is in part the quality of their organization that exposed the Mugabe government and the ZANU-PF party. These organized workers and human rights activists exposed a clique of political careerists and militarists that represented itself as an anti-imperialist force in Africa. From among the ranks of the working peoples emerged various political organizations. The political party that emerged out of this alliance of working peoples is the Movement for Democratic Change. (MDC).

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/387/49362g8escapism.jpgThe meeting of G8 leaders in Hokkaido, Japan, proved to be an exercise in escapism. The final communiqué of the G8 leaders is more of a recycled rhetoric of broken promises. This meeting, held in the midst of financial, fuel, food and climate crisis, failed to recognize the gravity of the crisis. The G8 leaders’ posturing of confidence will not help to solve these issues. This would further increase the legitimacy crisis of G8 as a credible forum to develop any viable solution for the ongoing problems of hunger and injustice- partly perpetuated by the corporate and institutional interests of G8 countries.

The original grouping of rich industrialized nations – G7- emerged in the context of the oil crisis of the 1970s. Now after almost thirty years, G8- that includes the co-opted Russia- face the challenge of being responsible to address the looming crisis of finance, fuel and food. The balance sheet of G8 in the last thirty years clearly shows that G8 as an institutionalized venue failed to provide any meaningful solution to the issues of poverty, war, inequities and injustice that confront the world. While they have managed to impose the neoliberal policy paradigm- with the strategic use of World Bank and IMF conditionality- on the developing world and poor nations of the world, they have not been able to do anything substantial to address trade inequities, aid diversion and debt trap. In fact, G8 leaders, instead of solving these issues, often used the Summits to push forward the interest of the rich countries, with lots of window dressing and rhetoric about poverty reduction, and more aid for the poor countries. In 2005, they promised to write off the debt and double the aid to Africa to address issues of poverty, disease and sustainable development. After three years, these leaders stand exposed in the graveyard of broken promises.

Though a new grouping of G5, countries, including India, China, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico, are being co-opted in to the periphery of the G8 Summits. The G5 Countries too have failed to influence the agenda or outcome of the G8 process. So it is high time for the G5 countries to ponder the very validity of being in the periphery of the G8 Summit- legitimizing the agenda setting role of the rich and powerful countries. Instead of playing the second fiddle to the rich American- European axis and a co-opted Japan, it is high time for G5 to explore the option of reviving the G20 process as an alternate option to discuss and to adopt collective measures to address the issues that confront humanity and the world. This requires a fresh imagination and political will from the part of the G5 leaders.

Kenyan environmentalists have told the BBC that the government should revoke a decision to allow a controversial biofuels project to go ahead. The project involves growing sugarcane for biofuels in coastal wetlands.

The African Union Assembly, meeting in its 11th Ordinary Session held on June 30 to July 1, 2008 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt,
DEEPLY CONCERNED with the prevailing situation in Zimbabwe;
DEEPLY CONCERNED with the negative reports of SADC, the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament observers on the Zimbabwean Presidential run-off election held on June 27, 2008;
DEEPLY CONCERNED about the violence and the loss of life that has occurred in Zimbabwe...

Kamlesh Pattni, the architect of the Goldenberg scandal, and 16 accomplices were given immunity from pursuit by the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission and the Central Bank of Kenya on April 9th 2008. The settlement agreement was registered in court on the same day by the Assistant Director of the KACC, Fatuma Sichale, and it was stated that the settlement was pursuant to section 56B of the Anti Corruption and Economic Crimes Act. The trouble is; there is no section 56B of the Anti Corruption and Economic Crimes Act.

comments on the resignation of Kenyan Finance Minister, Amos Kimunya, following allegations of financial impropriety in the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi:

“… it is important to understand that history was made yesterday. Never in the history of the nation has parliament on its own volition or initiative caused the resignation of a cabinet minister in defiance of the executive… In the often quoted case of former Vice President and now deceased, Dr Josephat Karanja, the plot to censure him was hatched in State House as crafty former President Moi wanted to get rid of his VP without risking a fallout amongst the powerful Kikuyus whom Moi greatly feared throughout his reign. So he got some MP to move the motion in parliament and gave the necessary instructions through the house which was then a mere rubber stamp of the executive.

This was not the case this time. In fact, if truth be told, the house was packed yesterday because members were expecting fireworks. Kimunya’s hurried resignation just before parliament’s first session of the week in the afternoon was no coincidence. The timing speaks volumes and tells me that State house is getting a little anxious. And the main reason has more to do with the naming of certain names that State House does not want to see named in connection to the Grand Regency.

But Kenyans need to be even more vigilant now. Will we get to the bottom of the Grand Regency saga? That should be the top priority that we must pursue now with all diligence.

To answer that question, there is an ominous sign to look out for. That sign is who gets appointed to replace Kimunya... If the new Finance Minister is from the ODM arm of the Grand coalition government then Kenyans will need to head to the hills because that will be a ‘grand bribe’ to ‘maliza hio maneno ya Grand Regency’. We can breathe a wee bit easier if Kimunya’s replacement is from PNU.”

Expose Uganda Genocide
Reacting to praise heaped on Uganda’s national policy on the displaced by Mukirya Nyanduga, Commissioner for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa, Expose Uganda Genocide argues that the camps for IDPs in Uganda have caused more deaths than the LRA, and describes the Commissioner’s statement as “Aiding and Abetting Genocide” and “Distorting History of IDPs”:

“In a stunning pronouncement this week, a visiting diplomat has hailed the IDP policy created by government officials.

In reality, an extreme lack of water, sanitation and health care has cultivated disease epidemics, caused thousands of preventable deaths and produced thousands of highly malnourished children unable to enjoy their right to protection, health and education.

Conditions in these camps have caused the most deaths in the long-running civil war been the Ugandan Government and the Lord's Resistance Army.”

Palapala Magazine a recent addition to the African blogosphere, interviews Abidemi Olowonira, a Houston-based Nigerian visual artist, about the role of artists in reviving and preserving collective memory in Africa. According to Olowonira,

“Remembrance has always been a binding factor in African societies. A lot of Africans are named after their ancestors and events that occurred around the time the child was born. So, as the child grows, he or she becomes a walking reminder of a particular incident or a particular ancestor. In contrast to the West where everything is fast, Africa retains its past.

When you consider the trauma of slavery and colonialism on Africa it is very difficult for the African artist not to make remembrance an aspect of their work. Personally, even though I address 'in-the-moment' experiences, I still pull a lot of inspiration from my childhood experiences and my parents experiences, retained through stories. In fact, I also get inspiration from my grandmother's experiences. For instance, I use the 'bush lamp' in my paintings as a symbol from a parable my grandmother shared with me: ‘The person who turns on the light is a hero but the one who turns it off is the villain.’ At night in African markets, people use the 'bush lamp' to sell their wares. I think it is a way for us to retain our humanity in spite of our circumstances. Light becomes a significant symbol in our experience. When you see a bush lamp at night it symbolizes life, security and hope. So, if those lights are extinguished, they'll be chaos because that is the only way people can identify a path on which they can walk. I use light in my paintings to illustrate its importance in the African experience.”

[email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/

The African Union (AU) chairman, President Jakaya Kikwete led a team of seven African presidents to the G8 summit in Japan that had food and oil crises, climate change and attainment of Millennium Development Goals on the top of their agenda. Kikwete urged the G8, group of eight most industrialised countries, ‘to nurture and fulfil their promises if they were really concerned about Africa’s development’. ‘The G8 has been accused by activists of reneging on the promise made at its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to double aid by 2010 to $50 billion, half of which would go to Africa’. Meanwhile, a momentous plan of action, initiated by the United Nations (UN), estimated at $72 billion a year in external funding to help Africa win the battle against poverty and invest in agriculture, education, health and infrastructure, has been launched at the just concluded AU summit. The AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping said ‘African leaders were looking to the Group of Eight to turn their existing promises into act’ to help the plan initiated by the UN and other partners work.

On the other hand, the AU Commission Chair Jean Ping and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa are expected in Zimbabwe to initiate dialogue between the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe. African leaders attending the G8 summit have expressed their concern about the move, spearheaded by western leaders, to sanction Zimbabwe through the UN Security Council. Speaking at the summit, President Kikwete said that ‘although many leaders in Africa had expressed their dissatisfaction at the way things happened in Zimbabwe’, they differed with G8 leaders ‘on the way forward’. Furthermore, the AU Chairman will hold talks with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about the crisis in Zimbabwe. Possible agenda items for the discussion will be the replacement of President Thabo Mbeki as chief mediator. Potential candidates include former UN Chief Kofi Annan, former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano or Ghanaian president John Kufour.

In business related news, Cameroon is hosting Africa’s International Economic Forum with the theme: ‘Investments and Industrial Partnerships in Africa: Assessment and Perspectives’. The forum is expected to promote investment in Africa as well as to improve the level of technology transfer in the continent. Cameroon will also seat the headquarters of the African Monetary Fund established with ‘the sole aim of promoting trade within the African continent’ by achieving ‘African economic autonomy’ and ‘setting achievable economic objectives’. Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the French government has strongly criticised the economic partnership agreements between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Christiane Taubira, a member of the French parliament who authored the report, recommended greater emphasis on social and economic development within the agreements. Hans Herren, of the U.S.-based Millennium Institute, has called for ‘caution to be exercised in developing African food production to avoid long-term social and environmental harm’. He expressed his fear that ‘the whole crisis around food and food prices will just promote quick fixes that are not really dealing with the causes’.

Finally, AU has endorsed Uganda as non-permanent member to the UN Security Council for 2009/2010. Still, Uganda needs to win the support from the 5 permanent members of the Security Council. Uganda was also endorsed to host the AU summit in 2010.

Kwani Litfest (KLF), August 1st to 18th, is one of the more exciting and robust literary festivals taking place in Africa.

Pambazuka News has been featuring more and more African writing. We are therefore especially pleased to bring you this special issue on KLF and some of the broader issues surrounding the political and aesthetic concerns of the younger generation of African writers.

This year KLF will feature a fortnight of writerly events, culture, mingling, discussion and inspiration. More than 40 African and international poets and writers will appear in fifteen days of panel discussions, l readings, book launches, conversations, literary lunches, cultural tours and performances.

Thiis dynamic 15-day writers festival which not only showcases the best of contemporary African writing, but also utilises established authors to provide inspiring writing tuition and manuscript assessments. KLF, now in its 4th successful year, brings together thinkers and writers from different continents and experiences to explore ideas relevant to the burgeoning African literary scene.

This year, in addition to creative endeavours, KLF will focus on the role of the writer in fast-changing conflict and post-conflict situations.

As a special theme following Kenya’s post election violence, KLF will explore the need for new definitions, solutions and ideas. Join us in writing, speaking, networking and devising ways to actively re-invent our society for the good of all.

Through a series of workshops, symposiums, book launches, discussions, retreats, travelling and networking, KLF will develop participants’ creative writing skills, with an emphasis on how stories can help society to see itself more coherently.

The 2008 Kwani Litfest will consist of:

- A series of one day workshops which begin on Saturday 2nd August

- Week long writing workshops geared towards the craft of writing, which begin Monday August 4th

- A one day symposium - Revisioning Kenya will take place on 8th August

- KLF moves to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Lamu on Sunday August 10th.

With special thanks to Dipesh Pabari, a Kenyan writer and one of the core KLF organizers for bringing this special issue together.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49339afrilit.jpgEach generation of writers is confounded by the simple and clichéd paradox – the more the world changes the more it remains the same. The imagination wants to be freed from the hold of the past, and yet it finds that the present and the material worlds are indelibly tied to that past. I believe it is to this tension that James Baldwin was speaking when he wrote that a writer cannot write outside his or her times.

Each generation of writers wants to acknowledge the previous generation, but at the same time it begrudges them an unchanged world while claiming the new for itself. It is these tensions that in the end produce literature, and help draw a blurred line between one generation of writers and the next.

I remember a great moment around 2002 when South African poet and anti-apartheid activist Daniel Kunene read a poem he wrote soon after apartheid fell in 1994. The poem was about taking out the trash from the kitchen. By way of introducing the poem, he narrated how he had felt, after having spent all his life fighting this beast called apartheid, now that it was dead, that he could allow his imagination to work out other concerns - the mundane, the minutiae of day to day existence.

But that was 1994 when all seemed possible in South Africa. In 2002, Kunene was reading the poem as something written in a moment in time, before it was overtaken by change that remained the same. Today thinking about the xenophobic attacks, his poem about taking out the trash has deep metaphorical undertones. It could very well be about cleaning out the trash that the ANC has become.

Let me not put words in his mouth and say this: that in the xenophobic killings we find the paradox that allows the new generation of South African writers and Kunene’s generation to have a dialogue. In the same way that Mugabe’s one-man show and the recent Kenya crisis allows the older and younger generation of writers to have a conversation. If such a national crisis is seen as an occasion to blame, then an opportunity to move history and literature forward is lost. If it is used to build on the past and if we understand history as a process then the stage for the next generation of writers is set.

But let me also say this – that I do not know what it means to be a political writer. Perrhaps more than anything this designation has been used to take the African artist and the writer out of what he or she produces. The friendly critic thus says - the African artist is functional; the African writer is political. Yet, the imagination cannot be moved by ideology otherwise it simply gives the ideology a different form.

Imagination is moved by a profound desire to render tangible that which is around it. The artist is moved by beauty and ugliness, by the senseless and chaotic because deep down the imagination is haughty enough to believe that there is nothing it cannot grasp and make visible. The artist has to make music out of two, three or more dead and dying beats. A novel with ten characters means that the writer had to bring a Lazarus back from the dead ten times.

So the African writer lives somewhere between “making the ordinary extra-ordinary”, making the invisible visible and finding a “voice for the voiceless.”

And I think my generation of writers understands this very well. Look, during the post-electoral violence in Kenya, the Concerned Kenyan Writers did not put their pens down in order to be concerned citizens. They spoke as writers to a political situation without as much as giving a nod to those who see Africans as producing only functional art, or want the African writer to write about the snow caps of Mt. Kilimanjaro while ignoring the politics of global warming. So, yes African writers can be unapologetically political but as artists.

It is precisely for these reasons that I remain very partial, even protective of the work that Kwani? Magazine has been doing for the last 6 or so years. I do not think Kwani? blames; I think it just does. And when it comes to African literature, there is a lot of work to be done.

Consider this, in the United States there are thousands of literary journals, some national, and some local, some in universities and some in high-schools. In Britain, you find the same thing. Yet in a country like Kenya, you have only one literary journal that can be considered national and in Nigeria half a dozen or so. One cannot even think of regional or provincial journals let alone high school journals in Africa. In the whole continent, with an exception of African Writing, there is hardly a literary journal that can considered Pan-African in that it serves the concerns of the whole continent. Considering Africa has a population that is close to 700 million, we are in terrible shape.

Or take the question of literary prizes. Again in the West, there are literary prizes for all ages and regions in addition to national ones. In Africa there are only a handful with the most prestigious being Western. In the US there are state and national art councils with their own budgets: African governments see writing as an act of spontaneous combustion by a few ingrates who should in fact be jailed. This is not to say that we need to emulate the literary traditions of the West, but surely we should be able to use them to challenge our own.

What does this mean? Quite simply that the African child sees writing a book as something he or she can never achieve. To chase after a dream, there has to be a belief that it can be achieved. The African student reads a novel by Achebe or Ngugi as a finished product; there is no process, books just happen to be born.

So the work being done by Kwani?, and other magazines such as Chimurenga and Farafina, is very central to the future of African literature. It is these magazines that demystify the writing process for aspiring writers. They become a magnet and home for national and continental talent. It is around these magazines that Literary Festivals are being held and it is around them that we should build African literary prizes. We need to invest in the creation of more journals till Kwani and Chimurenga become one amongst many.

This is not say that we do not have a few failings some of them bordering on the tragic. T.S. Elliot once remarked that a poet’s responsibility is first and foremost to his or her language. It is only fair to say that on this count we are failing - happily. But if we do not pick up the responsibility for our languages, who will?

*Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness (poems, 2006), Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change and is co-editor of Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org).

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49338kwani.jpgKwani faculty comprises a selection of some of the most exciting contemporary writers from Africa and beyond. Setting new agendas, they will teach, explore, debate, read and engage through a wide ranging series of panel discussions, literary lunches, workshops, and readings throughout the 15 days of KLF.

This powerful collection of individuals regularly write for some 75 publications and media outlets between them including Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Granta, New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, The Province, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, The Sunday Times, Harpers and Queen, Focus on Africa, The Economist, Wasafiri, Sable, Travel Africa, Chimurenga and more.
Faculty

Chimamanda Adichie (Nigeria): Her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize in 2007 and was a sensation in Nigeria for its subject – the Biafran war.

Doreen Baingana (Uganda): Author of Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe, which won a Commonwealth Prize in 2006, among others. Her stories have been nominated twice for the Caine Prize.

Ishmael Beah (Sierra Leone)– His memoir, A Long Way Gone, that tells of his time as a child soldier has sold close to a million copies.

Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenya): Kwani? founding editor Binyavanga Wainaina is a Caine Prize winner and contributor to numerous international publications, including Granta, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, Mail and Guardian, and many more.

Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone) – Former BBC journalist, writer and tutor, her creative non-fiction work The Devil that Danced on the Water chronicled the life of her father in opposition in Sierra Leone.

Simiyu Barasa (Kenya) - A Kenyan filmmaker and writer. He was Writer/Director of the Feature film ‘Toto Millionaire’ (2007) and has written for numerous Kenyan dramas like Makutano Junction, Tahidi High and

Wingu la Moto. His fiction has appeared in Africa Fresh: Voices from the First Continent. His opinions have appeared on NewYork Times, Nigerian Guardian, and South African Southern Times.

Dayo Forster (Gambia): Born in Banjul, her first novel, Reading the Ceiling, was short-listed for the 2008 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best First Book for the Africa Region. She has written articles for the East African, BBC radio, Farafina magazine and many other publications.

Stanley Gazemba (Kenya): Trained as a journalist, Gazemba lives in Kangemi, Nairobi and writes for Sunday Nation and Msanii Magazine. He is the author of The Stone Hills of Maragoli, which won the 2003 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, as well as 5 children’s books.

Parselelo Kantai (Kenya): One of Kenya’s foremost investigative journalists, Kantai is the former editor of the east African environmental quarterly Ecoforum. He wrote and oversaw the publication of “A Deal in the Mara,” which shed light on the corruption in the management of the Maasai Mara. He has contributed to a series of East African magazines and dailies and is currently working on a novel set during the 1970s Kenyatta years.

Muthoni Garland (Kenya): A Kenyan writer and publisher based in Nairobi. She writes stories for children and adults, including the Caine Prize-nominated novella, Tracking the Scent of My Mother and is the founder for Storymoja which encourages Kenyans to read for pleasure.

Jonathan Ledgard (UK) – Correspondent for the Economist and author of the novel Giraffe, he is a specialist writer in conflict, currently based out of Kenya.

Dr Lee (South Korea): Coordinator of the spectacular Jeonju Asian African Literary Festival, Dr. Lee is well versed not only in conflict, but in publishing and encouraging a reading public.

Tony ‘smitta’ Mochama (Kenya): A poet and journalist who lives and works in Nairobi. A Law graduate, Tony is also a vodka connoisseur, gossip columnist extraordinaire, and has a collection of short stories coming out soon titled – ‘The ruins down in Africa’. He has also been called a ‘literary gangster’, from time to rhyme. His collection of poetry, ‘What if I am a literary gangster?’ was published by Brown Bear Insignia in 2007.

Wambui Mwangi (Kenya): A scholar and a writer. She lives in Toronto and Nairobi, teaches at the University of Toronto, and blogs occasionally on Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman. She is the Director of GenerationKenya, a new multimedia project that explores the identity of post-independence Kenya.

Yvonne Owuor (Kenya): A storyteller based in Nairobi, her short story Weight of Whispers won the 2003 Caine Prize, and she has recently completed her first novel, Red Rain.

Nii Parkes (Ghana): A poet, short story writer, journalist and songwriter, Parkes has been published in magazines and newspapers across the continent.

Shailja Patel (Kenya): Kenyan poet, playwright and theatre artist, Shailja Patel, has performed her work in venues ranging from New York’s Lincoln Centre, to Durban’s Poetry Africa Festival. Her one-woman show, Migritude, received an NPN Creation Fund Award.

Kalundi Serumaga (Uganda): Independent filmmaker, media consultant, and host of a politically focused radio show in Kampala that several politicians (including President Museveni) have vowed never to return to.

Monica Arac de Nyeko (Uganda): Winner of the 2008 Caine Prize for her story The Jambula Tree.

John Sibi-Okumu (Kenya): John Sibi-Okumu is a renowned Kenyan actor, writer, playwright, and teacher.

Rasna Warah (Kenya): A columnist with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper and an editor with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). She is the author of Triple Heritage, has contributed fiction and non-fiction stories to Kwani? and will launch her anthology at KLF 2008.

Neil Graham (Canada/Scotland) – Formerly a Kenya-based journalist, Neil Graham recently retired from teaching journalism at Langara College in Vancouver. He was perviously managing editor of The Province, one of Canada’s largest newspapers.

Dipesh Pabari (Kenya): Writer, Education and Communications consultant. He sits on the Editorial Board for Awaaz Magazine and Wajibu and blogs regularly on Sukuma Kenya. His short story anthology for children entitled, “The Unlikely Burden and other stories,” was recently translated into Kiswahili.

Andia Kisia (Kenya): Writer, playwright and perpetual student, Andia is a recipient for a fellowship at the prestigious Royal Court Theatre in London.

*For more information on the festival and the workshops go to the Kwani? website:

*Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org