Henry Chakava’s death marks the end of an era in Kenya’s literary publishing
Henry Chakava during a past interview.
News of the death of Dr Henry Chakava came as a shock to many people in the book and knowledge industry in Kenya.
For a man whose face was for many years the face of literary publishing in the country, Chakava assumed a larger-than-life presence on the publishing scene so much so that, even though he had somewhat retreated to the background in recent years, his image was always present at any event where books and publishing were discussed.
Born in 1946 in Vihiga, Chakava first went to Friends School Kamusinga, before joining University of Nairobi, where he met world renowned scholars Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Taban Lo Liyong. At UoN, Chakava distinguished himself by his diligence, which saw him emerge with a first class degree in Literature and Philosophy.
He then embarked on a post-graduate programme at UoN in 1972, but soon changed direction and accepted a job offer as editor at the Heinemann Educational Books (HEB), under Bob Markham, whom he succeed a short while later as managing director.
Chakava was only 27 when he rose to be managing director of HEB, which he steered through business and political turbulence until, in 1992, rebranded it to East African Educational Publishers (EAEP), and further grew it into one of the most remarkable academic and literary publishers in Africa.
Throughout, Chakava navigated numerous commercial and internal challenges, some engineered by the autocratic Daniel arap Moi regime, while growing local talent in book publishing and the larger knowledge industry.
Simon Gikandi, a leading Kenyan professor at Princeton University, and Laban Erapu, Professor Emeritus at Bishop Stuart University in Uganda, do stand out.
These and other proteges of Chakava would answer other callings of their lives elsewhere, but stayed the cause of creating knowledge through writing, editing and publishing.
Chakava’s influence went beyond Kenya, because then the publishing network had a nerve centre in London, where most writers and publishers would often meet, with satellite offices in cities like Ibadan, Freetown, and Dar es Salaam.
Given the dynamics of decision making then, manuscripts would be sent to virtually all regional editors for review and determination of whether they were publishable or not.
That way, Chakava got a sense of emerging trends of literary intellection across the continent, and got to work with more globally acclaimed individuals, including Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe, Aigboje ‘Aig’ Higo, and Sierra Leonean Eustace Palmer.
At the same time, Chakava leveraged on the attraction that Nairobi held on writers from other parts of Africa and the world, and ended up involved in the goings on within the cycles of such individuals as Joe de Graft – whose play, Muntu, Chakava published – and John Ruganda, among others.
His immersion in these cycles also exposed him to what was then new and emerging literary local thought, including Meja Mwangi, Mwangi Ruheni, and Rebeka Njau, whose output expanded the staple of other East African thinkers of the time, notably Ngugi, Okot p’Bitek, and Taban.
He regretted, however, that many of these writers tended to write ‘Africa for Africans’, a limitation that he, Chakava, sought to address with the help of then established writers, mainly Ngugi.
Henry Chakava (left) with Prof Ngugi Wathiong'o during the scholar's lecture at The University of Nairobi's Taifa Hall on June 11, 2015.
James Currey, in Africa Writes Back, notes that “when the (University of Nairobi) failed to re-engage Ngugi after he was released after detention for nearly a year without trial … Chakava gave him a desk in his office”, from where they would debate “about the financial and other realities of publishing in African languages.”
It is arguable, hence, that Chakava provided the initial testing ground for Ngugi’s idea of publishing in African languages, which idea he pursues to date. Chakava was sold to the idea of publishing in African languages – after all, HEB had successfully published in Kiswahili before – but needed persuasion about the business sense of doing so. This remains a compelling consideration for many publishers as well.
Besides participating in the now well known “language debate”, Chakava was also immersed in debating the idea of literature that dominated publishing houses portfolios then, and argued for more inclusion of oral literature, which at the time had been introduced as a teaching area in secondary schools’ curriculum, and which therefore needed primary and supplementary material.
One of the people that Chakava approached to fill this gap was his former teacher at Friends School Kamusinga, Henry Owuor Anyumba. And while Anyumba later declined the offer, Chakava engaged other writers and subsequently published, in 1982, Kichamu Akivaga and Bole Odaga’s Oral Literature: A School Certificate Course.
Yet, whether by design or not, Chakava’s decision to work closely with writers such as Ngugi exposed him to politics of intolerance that was the hallmark of many draconian regimes, including Kenya’s Moi. He was attacked and harmed as a warning to keep away from ‘dissidents’, as Moi’s government labelled everyone who held divergent views.
Intellectual giant
This is the intellectual giant who has died at the age of 78; one who flung open the gates of publishing to let in diverse voices of new and old authors; collapsed the imaginary boundaries of serious versus popular literature by publishing Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Sam Kahiga, and John Kiriamiti in the same league; and, who secured oral literature’s pride of place as a mode of thinking about who we are and how we think.
By holding fast on publishing, despite the systemic and relentless interference by successive governments, Chakava lived the ethos of individual striving and personal belief in intellectual freedom as a journey that is treacherous, but achievable nonetheless.
This way, Chakava’s work is like the proverbial story in Achebe’s, Anthills of the Savannah, which Chakava published in Kenya, the story that “can continue beyond the war and the warrior… that outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters…and saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into spikes of the cactus fence.” May Henry Chakava rest in peace.
The writer teaches at the University of Nairobi
