Issue 1: Place

The Book Bunk

We build libraries.

Join us for an African Sun Sundowner with Tetu Shani, an award winning singer-songwriter (Global Music Awards), live performer (Two time winner of Best Live Band at Sondeka Awards), and one of the most prolific Kenyan recording artists in recent years with over 30 singles and two EPs. He was accepted into Berklee College of Music in 2014 with a scholarship to study performance but turned it down to help build an ecosystem for alternative musicians in Nairobi! He has since been featured on CNN African Voices, has gotten music placements on Netflix and international TV and film and is a radio host on his own show called Alt Kenya that helps audiences discover the best in Kenyan alternative music.

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The Book Bunk was live.

Binyavanga Wainaina won the Caine Prize for his short story, Discovering Home in 2001, and was the founding editor of Kwani?, the Nairobi-based literary magazine that he helped to establish in 2003. Kwani? immediately became a base for the curation of new writing from Kenya and elsewhere in the continent, and for establishing new literary networks. His satirical essay, How to Write About Africa, was published by Granta in 2006, and his memoir, One Day I Will Write About This Place was released both by Granta and Kwani? in 2013. In this conversation moderated by Christine Mungai, with Clifton Gachagua, Kiprop Kimutai, Wanjiru Koinange and Dr. Ngala Chome as panellists, reflects on the cultural and intellectual contributions of the late Binyavanga Wainaina, who passed on in May 2019. Amongst other themes, the panel shall focus on Wainaina’s life as a public intellectual, and his contributions to the creative, cultural and intellectual life of Kenya and Africa more widely. This event is a collaboration between Book Bunk, Sahifa, Baraza Media Lab and Down River Road.

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The Book Bunk shared a video from the playlist #NBOLitfest 2021.

Tune in to In Conversation: Billy Kahora and Muthoni Garland happening now!

Both writers are delving into the role Nairobi’s libraries have played in their writing lives, as well as how libraries and access to public archives and collections impacts their writing.

#NBOLitfest

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The Book Bunk was live.

How do cityscapes / landscapes influence Billy Kahora’s writing? How do writers research/ select the cities where their stories live? How do libraries, or access to public archives and collections impact writing? Tune in to find out!

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The Book Bunk was live.

Nanjala’s recent work has been described as “a must-read for all researchers and journalists writing about Kenya today”. In this conversation with author and Quartz Editor Ciku Kimeria, she explores the vagaries of movement for people of colour against the backdrop of a digital world.