The Annual StoryMoja Literature Festival Is Here With Us Again

7/29/2014
The Annual StoryMoja Literature Festival Is Here With Us Again | The Star
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YOU ARE HERE: HOME » THE ANNUAL STORYMOJA LITERATURE FESTIVAL IS HERE WITH US AGAIN
The Annual StoryMoja Literature Festival Is Here With Us Again
SATURDAY, JULY 26, 2014 - 00:00 -- BY ANDREA BOHNSTEDT
It is that time of the year again. Not rockstar bashing – Bob Geldof lost his daughter, and if that stops even Jane Bussmann, it will
stop me, too. And the latest do-gooder thing I heard from Bono was so snoozemaking, I rolled over and went back to sleep. No, it
Andrea Bohnstedt is the publisher of
Ratio Magazine, an East Africa online
business magazine, and works as an
independent country risk analyst for
several international firms.
is my other favourite: Literacy!
Andrea has an established track
A Kenyan writer, Okwiri Oduor, won this year’s Caine short story award – again. It is a bit like the marathons where you can have
any (insert city name) Marathon, but it will inevitably be won by East Africans so, people of the world, back off. For Kenya, this is
great news. And it again prompted a bit of discussion on the local publishing industry.
record in country analysis, having
worked for Global Insight (now Global
Insight IHS), one of the largest
One argument was that if you are an African writer, you would have to leave your country, physically, or at least in the way you are
international country intelligence
providers, as Africa analyst for three
represented and published, if you want to become commercially successful. I think there is some truth in this. A couple of years
ago, when I was first introduced to Miles Moreland, one of the main sponsors behind the Caine Awards, I wondered why the
award ceremony was held in the UK rather than somewhere on the continent. But part of the reason was to bring African writers
closer to the British publishing market. And this makes sense: Making money as a writer is difficult anywhere in the world, but
you need to seek out the big markets (And doing that won’t stop readers in your home country from reading you).
Unless your book becomes a text book, the local Kenyan market is, relatively speaking, teeny tiny. And with that, a publisher can
not really reinvest in producing good books. Of course this is also a chicken and egg situation: would people in Kenya buy more
Kenyan books if they were better? Or if Kenyans bought more local books, would publishing houses be able to invest more in
writers and quality? If people do not read good material (this is, I realise, a fairly vague concept, but religious/selfhelp/motivational/get-rich-quick books do not count), their writing is typically weak, too.
As i have argued plenty of times before, right here, that is not just an issue about entertainment. If you are the sensitive type,
taking a look at what university graduates write on social media, your head will explode: There is a whole generation that can not
string a sentence together. This is not just a spelling issue. This is not just an issue of horrifying a prospective employer. If you
learn by rote, and never venture out into the book world, then this is bound to affect your ability to express yourself, your ability for
complex and abstract reasoning, and also your ability to acquire knowledge.
One of the reasons why StoryMoja started the annual Litfest was to nurture a market for ideas and books, to show that these
things are both fun and good for your head. Moreland’s foundation has given them funding this year, and Teju Cole and Wole
Soyinka have shown enormous good will after the festival was cut short last year when the full horror of Westgate emerged on
Saturday afternoon. Cole is coming back because he wants a full Litfest, Soyinka says he is coming to support it in the aftermath
of Westgate.
years. Since leaving Global Insight,
Andrea has written on business,
economic and political risk issues for,
amongst others, Dun and Bradstreet,
Africa Practice, African Business, Africa
Investor, Afrika-Wirtschaft, Control Risk
Group, Oxford Analytica, Risk Advisory
Group, and MarketWatch.
Occasionally, Andrea gets asked what
she thinks by media like BBC, CNBC,
NTV, ITN, Bloomberg, and others.
Andrea holds a first degree is in
business studies, and an MSc in
development studies from the London
School of Economics (LSE).
@andreabohnstedt on Twitter.
If you are a CEO around here, you should be all over this like a rash. These, my friends, are your potential human resources:
People who wish you a ‘nyc tym’, fail at logic 101, and use their mobile internet for Twitter, but not to look up information. Is that
what you are looking for? If you are a hotel or airline CEO, don't you think that with the right promotion, this could be a massive
tourism event? Corporate Nairobi, where are you?
And no, I do not get paid by StoryMoja. Once or twice a year, I suspend cynicism and support a cause.
PS: So Nairobi Governor Dr Kidero and his deputy have Twitter accounts. And they tweet. That is all good – digital government
and such things. I have, however, lost track of how many times I have asked them on Twitter why the Westlands roundabout
traffic lights do not work anymore. Cold shoulder, every single time. Dr Kidero, are you out there?
The writer is an independent country risk analyst.
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