Book Reviews
Hints of Baba: Tendo’s ‘Rough Silk’ wins TBC runners-up award
Spanning 69 years, Rough Silk traces the life of George Auko—a man whose very birth feels steeped in myth. When Achieng Nyongalo gives birth beneath the Otho tree, her…
Book Reviews
Reviews of new and classic books from across the continent.
Book Reviews, page 1 of 2
Book Reviews
Drugged or dumped? To keep the pregnancy or not, that is the question
These are not just stories, they are recognisable and lived realities. The topic of abortion remains a hushed one spoken in codes and euphemisms on platforms like…
Book Reviews
Ben, you don’t have to fight to be a Maa warrior
Central to this ethical inquiry is Ben’s father, a Maasai warrior, who died protecting a film crew during a lion attack. Clay avoids mythologising him. His bravery is…
Book Reviews
From Kampala, the twists and tales of modern womanhood
Vera’s life takes an unexpected turn when she meets Eric, a polished, seemingly successful corporate executive who embodies everything she has been taught to hope for…
Book Reviews
Big Little Fights: Love, Chaos, and the Universality of Human Relationships
Cultural and generational tensions also permeate the book. Traditional frameworks of marriage—rooted in obedience, domesticity, and defined gender roles—clash with…
Book Reviews
In an era of ‘Jezebels’, whose husband is Elikem?
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie begins with Elikem absent on his wedding day, represented instead by his brother Richard. It is a story that peels back the curtain on…
Book Reviews
Wanjiku’s story: A heartfelt, sensory portrait of Kenyan childhood
This book is utterly charming, laugh‑out‑loud funny, and deeply moving. It portrays resilience — how children raised by grandparents in the countryside, by a nanny in…
Book Reviews
Won't you help to sing these poems of freedom?
Kinyatti, who was himself taken prisoner for six and a half years in 1982 for writing on the Mau Mau movement during Daniel arap Moi’s regime, intimates the hard…
Book Reviews
‘Emili, Lili and Beti feel like old friends who once whispered truths in the dark’
The revised edition stays true to the raw, unfiltered emotion that made the original book such a hit. Nothing fundamental has changed in the book, and that’s the beauty…
Book Reviews
50 years promoting women’s rights: Was Maillu Kenya’s pioneer feminist writer?
Imagine a time when topics like abortion, sexual harassment, and even women demanding equality in the bedroom were almost unspeakable—yet Maillu dared to write about…
Book Reviews
Which girl’s making use of ‘bottom power’ at the office? Ciku Kimeria has all the gossip
Allegations of women sleeping their way to the top aren’t new whether in reality or fiction, and this theme casts a mirror into the state of our societies
Book Reviews
The docile djinn: a story of race and prejudice in South Africa
This is an enchanting and thoughtful piece of writing that the reader only appreciates by reading slowly and leisurely in order to savour all the juicy morsels the…