New memoir details the story of a woman determined to reform prisons in Kenya
Wanini Kireri is the Assistant Commissioner General of Prisons, Nairobi County. She won the inaugural Public Servant Employee of the Year Award in 2015. PHOTO | WILLIAM OERI | NATION MEDIA GROUP
After her high school education, Wanini stumbled into the Kenya Prisons Service by chance.
This was at a time when, in the words of Dr Willy Mutunga, who has written the foreword “ … any stint in a Kenyan prison was tantamount to a death sentence”.
Through anecdotes, life lessons and hard-eyed wisdom, she narrates her challenges and subsequent wins on her quest to give a face to the then infamous Kenyan prisons.
Wanini Kireri’s captivating memoir, aptly titled The Disruptor, details an extraordinary woman’s trailblazing exploits in the Kenya Prisons Service. In this candid 142-page book, she tells all about her steady rise through the ranks in the prisons service in the 1980s and 1990s.
Wanini’s life story was inspired by Prof Wangari Mathai’s story of the hummingbird. Like this bird, she has through the decades reigned in the Kenyan prisons without ruling.
