Kwani? 04

Following the great tradition set by its three predecessors, Kwani? 04 presents a wail of new voices in literary concert with the not so new. The now established talents - Binyavanga Wainaina, Muthoni Garland, Doreen Baingana- share these pages with the fast risers: Billy Kahora, Mukoma wa Ngugi and Shalini Gidoomal. Read more

Kwani? 03

The recently published kwani? 03 has been described by critics and kwani? lovers alike as the best of the series and an indicator of how Kenya’s most popular journal has grown. In all aspects – editing, design, layout and breadth of material, kwani? 03 introduces a new chapter to the creative writing scene. Themed on the seventies, the cover uses the visual arts to make the written word as interesting and interactive as possible. Established writers M. G. Vassanji and Zimbabwe’s Charles Mungoshi grace its pages, among several other new writers published, for the first time, in kwani? 03. Creative non-fiction with social commentary also appears in the new issue, marking a new phase for kwani?.

Kwani? 02

From the critical and commercial success of Kwani? 01 came the next edition, kwani? 02, in 2004. This edition features contemporary literary Kenyan concerns themed on the question of identity. Building on the first issue, kwani? 02 offers all that kwani? 01 did and mirrors the post-millennial angst of young Kenyan writers, poets, cartoonists and photographers. Once again, kwani? featured in the Caine Prize for African writing 2004 when Parselelo Kantai’s Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys Bandwas runner up. Uwem Akpan’s An Xmas Feast has since been re-worked and published in the New Yorker magazine – the first time an African writer has been featured in that prestigious magazine.

Kwani? 01

kwani? 01 is a creative writing journal with photography, cartoons and graphic short stories. Published in Kenya in 2003, it is the first of a series of annual publications by Kwani Trust. Founder Editor Binyavanga Wainaina won Africa’s largest writing prize, the Caine Prize for African Writing, in 2002, with his story, Discovering Home. For the first time in the history of the prize, the judges’ decision was unanimous. Kwani? 01 launched a renewed interest in the reading of local materials by Kenyans and international readers. It showcases various aspects of creative energies that seem to have been dormant in Kenya in the 1990s, hailing the emergence of a new post-independence generation. Kwani? garnered immediate international interest when one of the stories, Weight of Whispers by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, won the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2003; the first time for a country to have won the prize for two consecutive years.