QUICK DELIVERY
Swift dispatch
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.
But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity--and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.
Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki--near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.
Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she's ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be--not even Deka herself.
When I learned how to walk and other ...
Brief Summary
'When I learned how to walk & other poems', is a compilation of 17 poems written by myself (I have been a performing spoken word poet in Nairobi for the past 5 years, and this is my debut poetry book).
The poems in this book span a wide range of topics, from African power, love, identity, mental health, and the inevitability of heartbreak.
The book is a small one, 61 pages, however, it contains poems that are meant to be re-read as many times as the reader wishes. The book is largely in English, and contains a few lines in Swahili, with one of the poems being entirely in Swahili.
ISBN:9789914700473
Author: Mumbi Macharia
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
Brief Summary
New York, 2007. After two long years apart. Jende Jonga has brought his wife Neni from Cameroon to join him in the land of opportunity. Drawn by the promise of America they are seeking the chance of a better life for them and their son.
When Jende lands a dream job as chauffeur to a Lehman Brothers executive, Neni finds herself taken into the confidence of his glamorous wife Cindy. The Edwards are powerful and privileged: dazzling examples Of what America can offer to those who are prepared to strive for it.
But when the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, all four lives are dramatically upended. As faultlines appear in both marriages and secrets bubble to the surface they must all decide how far they will go in pursuit of their dreams. And what will they sacrifice along the way?
`A marvellous debut ... as deeply insightful as it is delightfully entertaining' Taiye Soles!, author of Ghana Must Go
ISBN:9780008237998
Author:Imbolo Mbue
Embu Historical Texts by Henry Stanle...
Brief Summary
In this book the author traces the origin, movements and cultural life of four different tribal groups in Embu, Mbeere, Chuka and Kirinyaga areas in the central province of Kenya.
The volume comprises of four parts: Part 1 being text on Embu, part 2 on the Mbeere, part 3 on the Chuka and part 4 on the Ndia/Gichugu Kikuyu.
ISBN:EmbuHistoricalText001
Author:Henry Stanley Kabeca Mwaniki
Swords of Kirinyaga The Fight for Lan...
We Came in Dhows by Cynthia Salvadori...
Brief Summary
From the introduction: "This volume has been designed as a companion to Through Open Doors: A View of Asian Cultures in Kenya.
Although that book describes the historical background of the various Asian communities in Kenya, it has little information about individual people. This book is all about people."
Pocket Guide Butterflies of East Afri...
Butterflies are among the most familiar and popular of all the insects, and butterfly watching makes an absorbing hobby. This handy, compact guide serves as an introduction to East Africa’s amazing butterfly diversity. It introduces 246 of the more common, spectacular and interesting species found in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
Each species account features concise text describing key identification features, habits, habitat and larval food plants; full-color photographs; and distribution maps showing each butterfly’s range.
This handy guide should prove invaluable to beginners and more experienced butterfly enthusiasts alike.
The Girl Was Mine by David Karanja
In The Girl Was Mine, Douglas Kamau struggles to keep Nancy Wanja his girlfriend, but the prevailing forces almost cost him his life.
Whether or not Douglas emerges victorious is the ultimate question.
The world favors rich tycoons like Tim Matthews and makes them confident that they can have anything they want, even the love of an unwilling young woman. Nancy's father Waihenya will do anything for money and position.
The Wretched Africans: A Study of Rab...
Brief summary
The Wretched Africans: A Study of Rabai and Freretown Slave Settlements.
This book is about the 19th century slave trade in Eastern and Central Africa. No one in the history of humankind has suffered the indignity, abuse and pain of slavery than the African. Over many centuries, millions of Africans were uprooted from their quaint villages in the interior of the "Dark Continent" and taken into slavery.
They were exported to the Americas, Asia, Arabia and a dozen other countries around the globe, to work in plantations, in the pearl industry, and as soldiers and domestic workers. Boys were castrated and made eunuchs and girls were sexually abused and forced into harems. Unfortunately, the African slave narrative - written mostly by Western historians and missionaries - has been contemptibly distorted to portray Europeans as the gallant saviors, the notorious slave traders as swaggering heroes, and the African captives as wretched victims of a horrible but regrettably inevitable human phenomenon of the time.
The truth has been loftily garbled or masked and the role of liberated Africans vastly under-represented. The Wretched Africans peels of what is beneath the Arab slave trade, unravels the racism and abuse meted against Africans by European explorers and missionaries, and lays bare the heroism and resilience of the African captives. It memorializes Africans who died in caravan trails, at sea and those who found freedom in slave settlements around the world. It is a must read for historians, researchers, students and the general public wanting to understand the truth about what happened to an estimated eleven million people taken captive from the east coast of Africa to the new world and beyond.
Dear Ijeawele or a Feminist Manifesto...
Overview
From the best-selling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists comes a powerful new statement about feminism today--written as a letter to a friend.
A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response.
Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions--compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive--for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman.
From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century. It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.
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ISBN:9781524733131
Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Last Word by Yusuf Dawood
The Last Word by Yusuf Dawood concludes the quartet of the Surgeon's Diary - in book format. The other three are Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Off my Chest, and Behind the Mask.
The beautifully executed stories in the Last Word are adorned with occurrences from the author's extensive travels and medical experiences, some heart-rending and others with exultant endings. Dawood's stories are lit with humor and wit that make the myriad medical challenges seem surmountable.
The stories though appearing in the Surgeon's Diary are fresh and authentic. Just like in the other three titles that form the quartet, the author has once again used his scalpel and pen with prowess to bring real surgical drama to our doorstep. Dawood, a celebrated surgeon and formidable author, has authored The Price of Living, One Life too Many, Water Under the Bridge, among others. The Last Word is his eleventh title.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Yusuf K. Dawood
Hatimaye Coffee Table Book
This coffee table book features stunning photography, personal narratives, and critical legal perspectives that document our community's journey and brings together powerful voices from Kenya's artistic and legal communities to illuminate the lived realities of the law on queer bodies, minds, and souls.
Crossings: Migrant Knowledges, Migran...
Transforming The Law Enforcers: Insti...
Dr. Margaret Awino Ong’ale
"Transforming the Law Enforcers" is more than just a book—it's a reflection of my journey as an officer, a researcher, and a reform advocate.
Having served within the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for years, I witnessed firsthand how reforms, especially in training, leadership, and technology transformed the way we fight crime. My PhD research focused on these institutional reforms, and I felt it was important to share the findings with a wider audience beyond academia.
This book is my contribution to a better, more professional DCI. It’s a call to action, especially for young officers and policymakers, to embrace integrity, innovation, and service to the people.
As a woman in law enforcement, I also wanted to show that women can lead—on the ground, in policy, and through knowledge.
I hope this book educates, inspires, and influences positive change in how we think about policing in Kenya.
Inside the Presidency: Trials and Tri...
Inside the Presidency: the Trials and Tribulations of a Zambian Spin Doctor is a captivating chronicle of the goings on at the centre of state power as told by an insider. It captures the intrigues at the presidency, specifically associated with the author's time serving retired President Rupiah Banda.
The book tells of President Banda's ascendancy to the presidency following the death of Levi Mwanawasa. Telling it as it was, Jere paints well the roles of a number of players in supporting the president's quest to meet his mandate to the Zambian people. This is a first-hand account of the operations of the presidency as well as the challenges (and later failure) by Banda to secure a second term of office. It gives insights into the in the then ruling party, the president's own beliefs and approach to politics, and how the opposition took advantage of these to defeat an otherwise accomplished president.
The book is a window into policy positions, international relations, government bureaucracy and political manoeuvers in high office. Several decisions, popular and unpopular, are laid bare as is their rationale and impact. It paints a picture of the fire-fighting between government positions and public perception and further shows the inter-play of all this with opposition parties and the press.
Mwakenya : Real or Phantom
Mwakenya: Real or Phantom?, is Jimmy Achira's persecution experience Daniel Arap Moi's Kenya in 1980s. The Daily Nation captured best the nebulous phenomenon called Mwakenya.
“Mwakenya remained a chimera to the Kenyan media. Reporters knew no “Mwakenya” officials and received no calls, manifestos or press releases from them.
“There was no known office location, or telephone or fax numbers. Everything that came to the media house, and appeared as trial evidence, was from the Moi-KANU government.
“The seditious documents produced in court were always photo-copies, never originals. It was not only university lecturers, students who were victims of the security dragnet-civil servants and journalists too, were picked up”. -Daily Nation, Sept. 20th 1987.
In the 1980s, in Moi’s regime, it was anathema to be termed "Mwakenya" for that would pronounce arrest, torture and jail. It was one of the saddest chapters in the nation’s history; people talked in hushed voices, looking over their shoulders to see who was listening; when people worried what they were seen reading for it could be “seditious”.
Jimmy Achira, a journalist who found himself in the Mwakenya dragnet, chronicles his experiences in Mwakenya: Real or Phantom?
The book is not a history of Mwakenya but a personal account of encounter with oppression in Moi’s Kenya. The real story of Mwakenya would be told by historians. It is unfortunate that instruments like the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission have yet to unearth the atrocities against Kenyan people; atrocities perpetuated in the name of state security; and law and order.
What others say:
"It is important that the experiences such as Achira's be told for the sake of history and posterity. The history of those dark days should be taught in schools, alongside tales of heroic struggles such as that of Mau Mau
"Many Kenyans who enjoy the fruits of "freedom" under multi-party democracy know little about the suffering many faced and sacrifices made to achieve the current freedom.” - Gershom Otachi Bw'Omanwa
"The Nyaro era of the 1980s was a time of horror in the history of human rights in Kenya. In early 1986 the crackdown on those Kenyans perceived to have dissenting views about the government had been put in motion. Under the guise of rooting out subversives, particularly referred to as "Mwakenya" ( Muungano wa Wakenya) the police unleashed such a reign of terror that a wide cross-section of people's lives were destroyed. “ - Dr Carey Francis Onyango, Lecturer and HUman Rights Activist.
“Political imprisonment was common in the Nyayo era in which Moi held Kenya in a vice-like grip. Now, the untold can be told. Stories, as Jimmy Achira's, help us understand those days and the price many Kenyans paid for freedoms enjoyed today. “ - Dr Matunda Nyanchama, ICT Professional and Publisher.
About the Author
Achira was born at Bosiango, West Mugirango, Nyamira and went to Bosiango Primary School, Taranganya and Nyansabakwa High Schools. He taught at Mborogo Secondary School before entering journalism.
He has worked for Target/ Lengo, East African Standard, Nation and Kenya Times. Others are The Weekend Mail and The Weekly Revie . In April 1995, he incorporated Rural Media Services Limited under which he published regional rural monthly newspaper, The Western Monitor. He co-edited, with Tom Amoro, A Guide to Gusii Politics 1997, published What Next after 1997 General Elections in Gusii? Presently, he is media consultant/publisher and working on The Memoirs of a Veteran Journalist 1979 – 1999.
Yahoo! Yahoo! by Ikenna Okeh
Vagabonds by Eloghosa Osunde
As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities. Eloghosa Osunde's brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city's dark energy. Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde's characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion.
Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph.