Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature - Nominees

The nominees for the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature have been announced.
Here they are, courtesy of Jos Ngunjiri's Maisha yetu blog (http://kenyanbooks.wordpress.com):
1. Adult English Category (Ksh150,000)
a) Hawecha (Longhorn) by Rhodia Mann,
b) Blossoms of the Savannah (Longhorn) by H.R. Ole Kulet
c) The Big Chiefs (EAEP) by Meja Mwangi.

2. Adult Kiswahili Category (Ksh150,000)
a) Kala Tufaha (Phoenix) by Babu Omar
b) Vipanya Vya Maabara (JKF) by Mwendah Mbatiah
c) Unaitwa Nani (Vide Muwa) by Kyalo Wamitila.

3. English Youth Category (Ksh75,000)
a) Lake of Smoke (Phoenix) by Julius Kibera
b) Walk with me Angela (KLB) by Stephen Mugambi.

4. Kiswahili Youth Category (Ksh 75,000)
a) Ngoma za Uchawi (KLB) by Atibu Bakari
b) Kisasi Hapana (OUP) by Ken Walibora
c) Sitaki Iwe Siri (Longhorn) by Bitugi Matundura.

5. Children English category
a) A Mule Called Christmas (Phoenix) by Nyambura Mpesha
b) The Prize (OUP) by Elizabeth Kabui
c) On the Run (OUP) by Mwaura Muigania.

The winners will be announced on Saturday, September 26 at Avalon Restaurant along Riverside Drive.

All the best guys

Successful business book

Here:
http://blog.800ceoread.com/2009/09/15/recipe-for-a-successful-business-book/

Recipe For a Successful Business Bookby Todd Sattersten
David Galanis at the Peeble Creek Partners Blog shares the secret to creating a successful business book:
Start with multiple authors – including an academic from a prestigious business school and a seasoned business consultant plus a business journalist from a major newspaper or magazine (someone has to actually write the book).
Using free graduate student talent from the B-school, develop a database of the performance of thousands of companies over the past decade – more if you want to sound really authoritative. Be sure to select a few unique performance metrics to differentiate your results from all the other formulaic books.
Select the top performing companies and “study” them to determine why they are better than the others. Interviews and visits make things sound much more legitimate. Use “strategy”, “execution”, and “management talent” as this makes for good reading and advice. Always avoid “a great market”, “favorable economic factors”, “lousy competitors”, and “luck” to explain success.
Develop a list of between 8 and 12 characteristics (the chapters of the book) and expound on them. It always helps to close each chapter with a summary list or two so readers of your book can copy it and pass it around at management meetings to impress their peers.
Come up with a catchy title; get a few quotes for the back cover; and publish. Then go on a brief book tour to business meetings around the country; trash the prior books; and wait for

Everyone in Nation Media Group's got a Sunny Bindra book

It is perhaps the first firm in the country to do this: The Nation Media Group just bought each of its 1,000-plus employees a copy of Sunny Bindra's 'Crown your Customer'.

Those in the know say NMG is currently promoting customer care as a key feature of its 'New Culture' where "enablers" (Customer care, professionalism, clear career path etc) are promoted while "disablers" (back stabbing, favouritism etc) are being discouraged, or done away with.

To the extent that NMG is promoting customer care, Bindra’s book is seen as a fitting reading material – and what a read it is.

What is of note is that the firm actually bought its employees BOOKS. It didn't take the easier route of buying a few copies and dumping them in the library for those wishing to read to borrow; Or, better still, invite Mr Bindra to conduct a training on customer care.

Not even the 30-plus publishing houses in Kenya have bought a book for each of their employees. (Imagine if each of the editors in the publishing houses bought at least one locally published book a month…)

This is not only a vote of confidence in Bindra's writing and expertise (after all he is a columnist with Sunday Nation) but also a boost to the local publishing industry. It also encourages Muthoni Garland’s StoryMoja initiative.

But buying the books and giving them to the employees is just one step. The next step is to have the employees read the book … then apply the concepts so learnt.

Well done NMG.

Books everywhere but ...

Is it just me or is everyone suddenly into books?
We have Kwani? - flush with cash but mean as hell, never mind that is more of a clique of I-know-you-you-know-me-the-rest-are-idiots-let's-write fellas; Storymoja - still can't figure out how to describe Muthoni Garland's outfit past the word 'awesome' ... and dozens of other book related events like the recent book signing at Nakumatt Junction where about 7 authors featured.
Oh, and just today read of this couple that is offering an e-bookshop - you order your book online and pay via m-pesa then the book is delivered to you.
I'm aware Books First has such a service too. Midiwo's sister's Legacy bookshop at Yaya Centre and Sarit Centre has such a service too, I mean online purchase. Legacy is not your common kind of bookshop though - it mostly caters for NGOs and 'development' minded individuals.
Still on my rant about this outbreak of books, I must salute Nairobi Star - now known simply as The Star - for their pioneering way of marketing books. Every day they would offer a free book to a lucky reader. All the reader had to do was to write to them and say whta section of the paper they liked ... and they would get a book.
The Star also deserves praise for their relentless marketing of Michela Wrong's It's Our Turn to Eat, a book that no bookshop would touch for fear of being sued by our untouchable billionaire-shilling thieves. The book wouldn't stand much scrutiny, really. I mean, it's more of John Githongo and his sneaky ways at a Kikuyucentric State House than anything else.
Every other day a book is being launched or serialised somewhere in Kenya. Every hour, someone is blogging about a book or an editor is assessing a manuscript or some politician is engaging a writer for a biography ...
It's a books galore people. Don't be left behind.

Kuli by Adam Shaffi - Book Review

Poverty, poor pay, hard, unappreciated work. This sums up the lot of porters. And it is the life into which Rashidi is born, raised, grows up, marries into and finally gets imprisoned for.
After the death of his father, Majaliwa, Rashidi has to look for work, any kind, to at least help his mother out.
He starts off with pushing carts under the watch and guidance of Mzee Tindo and crew. With time, he is as good as any. In that time he realizes that while the work is long and arduous, the pay is meager and hardly enough to sustain him. He also notices that Mzee Tindo seems to take advantage of the other workers but they seem oblivious of this.
He decides to take this up and asks for more money. Mzee Tindo is taken aback at Rashidi’s nerve. All the same, he agrees to lead him and one other employee to the boss. Unknown to Rashidi, Tindo had already told the boss about their demands. When they get to the boss, Rashidi is summarily dismissed.
He is back to joblessness but he does not give up and after a long while, he gets another job. This time as a porter at the harbor. He throws himself into the job and though the pay is better, it is not good enough to get him out ofpoverty nor is the work any less – it’s long, arduous and thankless.
Try as he might, Rashidi again finds himself drawn into the labour movement.
Things get so bad –too much work, same pitiful pay and a cruel management. Matters are brought to a head when an employee is killed. Rather than show compassion, the management treats it as a non issue since the employee was just a casual as such Smith Mackenzie Ltd has no obligation to do anything. This irks the employees so much that they strike– three weeks long forcing the management into a meeting. The workers accept to go back to work but nothing changes; if anything, the management becomes more cruel.
Rashidi, Baraka and Faraji decide on a go slow. On the Saturday of the go-slow Rashidi is arrested at work. Things happen pretty fast. After the supervisor of Smith Mackenzie, one George, tries to force the workers to resume work and they refuse, he alerts the police. On their arrival, the head ofpolice picks out Rashidi and starts off roughing him. This does not go down well with Rashidi who hits back and before long it’s a free for all. Rashid is beaten senseless and thrown in.
This results in a blanket ban of all meetings by the colonial administration. Policemen are poured into the streets to enforce a curfew. What started as a go-slow grows into a strike of several weeks. But notto be deterred, the workers reps devise ways of relaying messages to every one and soon a huge meeting is called – never mind that meeting are banned. On the day of the meeting real chaos erupt as the workers take on the police – several are killed among them Baraka and Faraji.

All the while, Rashidi is behind bars. He is later jailed for three years. Charges? Striking a uniformed policeman and starting chaos.
It is in the court that the one-sided nature of the legal system is brought to light. While the prosecution forces the accused to answer questions in acertain way, when the accused is given a chance to ask questions, the magistrate does not even pretend to see that the accused has shredded the prosecution’s case … and goes ahead to give him three years.
Rashidi’s selflessness, naivety and thirst for a better life illuminates an otherwise sad tale. As we walk with Rashid from one stage of his life to another, we are confronted with the harsh life of a porter, made harsher by illiteracy and a colonial administration that not only rules by the fist but also takes the local’s labour for granted – indeed treats it as their right to exploit.

A deluge of books on Obama, African-American, Slavery

After the Obama victory, it seems any bookshop worth its name must have countless books on Obama and the African American.
A good example is Bookpoint Nairobi. I was there three days ago and counted close to 30 titles on Obama, Michelle, the African-American, slavery name it.
I'm on my second book on the same topic. This time it is Booker T. washingtom autobiography, Up from Slavery.
It is quite a read - more engagig and uplifting than the earlier one...

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

This is a review of the book I will be reading in August when I take my leave. It sounds like Po Bronson's "What Shall I do with My Life".

http://www.thebookseller.com/books/author-profiles/71272-a-jobbing-author.html

A jobbing author

21.11.08 Catherine Neilan

Alain de Botton The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Penguin, April, hb, £18.99, 9780241143537)

With unemployment figures reaching an 11-year high and talk of a recession spreading throughout Europe, working life is coming more and more into the spotlight. Jobs are becoming more scarce, particularly in sectors such as finance or construction, but also, as we have seen with recruitment freezing, in publishing. And workers are becoming stressed—helplines have reported an increased number of calls from people concerned about their fi­nances and the future of their job.

Alain de Botton believes the economic crisis will encourage people to think about more than just where their next pay packet comes from. People must, he believes, examine the meaning of our nine-to-five life—whether it is remunerative or something "higher" and whether being "successful" and "happy" are attainable targets.

In his new book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, de Botton ­addresses the core belief that work should have meaning, a relatively modern concept, which was introduced to Europe at around the same time as the idea of marrying for love.

"This is the great bourgeois dream—having a job that is essentially your hobby and a wife you love," he says. "It is a beautiful idea, but an incredibly demanding one, and one that leaves most of us feeling inadequate."

Pleasures and Sorrows offers a chapter-by-chapter glimpse into the kind of "hidden" jobs many of us don't think about—factory workers, fishermen, or electricity pylon engineers. He rejects the notion, which he is "sometimes accused of", that his books are self-help; Pleasures and Sorrows will not, he says, help you find the right job. But he believes it can offer a new "perspective" on the types of jobs there are in the world, and what goes on behind the scenes to provide us with tuna, biscuits, and television.

Partly inspired by his own "constant career crisis" and partly by curiosity—having only ever worked as a writer­—about "how the rest of the world functions", de Botton thinks the book will tap into a universal ­interest. "I think it's natural human curiosity, and yet it is weird how much it doesn't come into books very much," he says. "There are journalists' books about spectacular successes or failures—the rise of Google or the fall of Enron—but what is missing is something telling me what it feels like, what people get up to."

The book has a very personal feel, with de Botton setting out as "intentionally naïve and a bit innocent, treating some of these things that are very obvious to these people to bring out the strangeness". By seeing the daily grind through new eyes, de Botton brings an alternative interpretation to what most would consider part of the routine, if it were considered it at all.

For example, while following a group of accountants on their isolating commute, de Botton interprets their newspaper reading as "not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper". And when meeting a young woman at a biscuit factory, he asks: "Why in our society are the greatest sums of money so often tended to accrue from the sale of the least meaningful things?" He is then faced with "a terrified expression . . . and she asked if I might excuse her."

The people he meets range from senior management who are often "incredibly nervous, so far as to say paranoid" about what de Botton might be looking for and those on the shop floor who were "very enthusiastic, very friendly and open", even if their jobs were "truly grim".

Melancholic, bittersweet
As well as the biscuit makers and accountants, he meets Indian Ocean fishermen, the British Inventors' ­Society and a lonely, somewhat unsuccessful albeit satisfied, painter. De Botton says he looked most fondly­ on the scientific roles, "the craftsmen of the satellite or the craftsmen of electricity pylons. In a way these are the heroes of the book, because they are very modest people, putting together small bits of the world that nevertheless matter a lot."

The career adviser is one of the more tragic figures within the book, failing to realise just how ironic his very position—one that is derided, underpaid and hardly aspirational—just is. De Botton admits to feeling sorry for him, but is also critical. "He was a very nice man, who was caught up in a dangerous ideology about work that he was peddling to himself and those he saw," he says. "Really what we need is not a career counsellor, it is someone to console us."

At times the book feels incredibly gloomy. Despite de Botton's attempt to make a midnight visit to a logistics park resemble a childhood memory of waking and hearing the goings-on of the house, it remains a stark indictment of the futility of modern life. The many black and white illustrations often lack people and are of sights we tend to avoid capturing on film: electricity pylons, car parks, people sitting at their desks.

"I have no idea whether I will just bore the reader solid," de Botton jokes. "On a good day, I imagine I have brought out the poetry of working life. It is quite poignant, the tension between the incredible sophistication of the machinery and the meaningless of the end product and the fact that these people's lives are wrapped up in it. It's not cheerful, but neither is it depressing. It's melancholic, bittersweet—it is the world we have created."