Agog with things literature, I dream of our books sailing on Nam Lolwe

It has been a hectic week, replete with literary events and, for many of us elders, poignant personal and national memories.

On the memory front, August 22 reminded me of a similar date in 1978 when I reported to the Kenyatta University Campus, for what turned out to be a 20-year working “visit”.

The same date was also when, unforgettably, the Voice of Kenya (VOK) radio played the National Anthem at one in the afternoon and told us that Mzee Jomo Kenyatta had departed this world. Any surprise, then, that the events of such a date remain etched in the memory of an old man’s mind 45 years later?

Of the literary events, I will comment on only two that most gripped my attention and imagination. First, there was the arrival of the MV Logos Hope library ship at Mombasa, on Monday.

Then, on Thursday, in Nairobi’s CBD, at the “Maison Francaise”, as we used to call the French Cultural Centre, we had the presentation of the prize to the 2022 winner of the Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize, Jerushah Kananu Marete.

Just about concurrently with these events has been the “Mashariki 6” East African Literary and Cultural Conference, out at Makerere’s Main Campus in Kampala, but this we will leave for later.

Starting in Mombasa, I was pleasantly startled to be reminded, by the arrival of the MV Logos Hope and its docking at Mbaraki, of this now decades-old experiment of a worldwide floating library.

The floating library, with a treasure-trove of hundreds of thousands of books, will be with us in the coastal city for the better part of a month and a half, and members of the public, that is us, will be free to board the ship, explore its spacious decks, roam its maze of shelf-lined corridors, redolent with books on probably any topic on earth and beyond.

Then, I understand, you may pick a book that catches your fancy, find a quiet, breeze-cooled corner on the deck and read to your heart’s content, in between gazing over the endless expanse of the Indian Ocean.

If this is not paradise, then it is pretty close to it, for me. Indeed, if you have been promising yourself that lifetime visit to the magical Coast, this would be just the time to hop on to the SGR and enjoy that unique experience, among the other secrets of the Pwani.

I noted that the last time a floating library ship docked into Mombasa was some 25 years ago. The experience may not be easily repeatable.

I must confess, however, that I am not an entirely objective and impartial judge, since my fanaticism for books and for reading, along with my addictive fascination with the sea and the Coast, is well-known.

But we need not despair and leave the joy of reading as we float to the lucky Coastals and those who can travel down and join them.

Nam Lolwe is Lake Victoria, as we call it Nyanza (and “Nyanza” or “Nyanja” also means “lake” or open water).

An idea came to me as I was reading about the German-inspired MV Logos Hope library, that we could replicate it on any of our big lakes, and certainly on Lake Victoria. Our “MV Maktaba” (Library) or “Kitabu Bora” (Worthy Book) could get stocked in Kisumu and set off from there to reach readers and book lovers in Homa Bay, Musoma, Mwanza, Bukoba, Masaka, Entebbe, Jinja and back.

I am thinking of this only within the context of my eagerness to get people reading by any means possible and get books and other reading materials to where the people are.

But it could also be a multi-billion-shilling tourist proposition and would be viable on other East African lakes, like Tanganyika, Kivu and Albert. I am an Aquarian and I love water, and we Aquarians are known for coming up with fantastic ideas, without acting on them.

Back to terra firma (solid land), however, the presentation of the Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize to upcoming author, Jerusha Kananu Marete, took centre stage for me, especially because of its symbolic significance.

The prize was established to recognise the best independently published book of creative writing. Competition is open to Kenyan writers all over the world. Kananu Marete won the 2022 edition of the Prize with her poetry collection, Echoes of Military Souls, published by Nairobi-based Mystery Publishers. But the presentation event was delayed owing to a number of complications, including the author’s bereavement earlier this year.

The glittering ceremony at the French Cultural Centre was spiced with readings from the winning book and performances by different artistes, as well as moving short responses to Marete’s work from many distinguished figures from academia, creative communities and public life.

Maybe if I tell you that one of the guests who spoke was our Prof “PLO” Lumumba, I will have just about said it all. A takeaway line from the Prof’s speech at the presentation was, “Humility is the mother’s milk of sustained success.”

That, I think, is a perceptive description of author Kananu Marete, who has also published a second volume of verse, called Marry Me a Co-Wife.

This author writes with a fiercely honest and direct power, startling and compelling us to look at life and experiences from angles we might never have considered before.

Yet in her personal approach to people and issues, she displays a totally disarming earnestness and sincerity that convinces one of her faith in what she is doing. This, I believe, is how she was able to assemble the distinguished company, cutting across all generations, professions and classes, that graced her event.

Literature and the entire creative enterprise need young people of such calibre to foreground and mainstream the humaneness, humility and humanity of the creative arts, especially in the face of the imperious and mechanical inflexibility of some “scientific” acolytes.

Hongereni, congratulations, Jerusha Kananu Marete and your Mystery Publishers.

- Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and [email protected]