Sunday Salon Nairobi
A Prose & Poetry Series
Featuring  
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Billy Kahora
Okwiri Oduor
NoViolet Bulawayo
Karen Jennings
Yewande Omotoso

The Kwani? Sunday salon features the winner of the Kwani? Manuscript Prize, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi alongise the writers shortlisted for the 2013 Etisalat prize for Literature- Yewande Omotoso, Karen Jennings and the overall winner, NoViolet Bulawayo. They will be joined by Kwani? managing editor Billy Kahora and Okwiri Oduor, both shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing.

Six Readings & Performances
Six Unique Voices
In a tranquil outdoor setting 

3pm-9pm
Sunday 29th June 2014
Kwani Trust office gardens
FREE ENTRY

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi was born in Uganda and moved to England in 2001 to study. She now teaches Creative Writing at Lancaster University where she completed her PhD.  Her work has been published by African Writing and Commonword.  Her short story Let’s Tell This Story Properly won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2014.  Kintu is her first novel and the winner of the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. She is currently at work on her second novel.

Billy Kahora is the managing editor of Kwani? He also writes fiction and completed an MS.c in Creative Writing with distinction at the University of Edinburgh as a Chevening Scholar in 2007. He has a Bachelor of Journalism degree and post-graduate diploma in Media Studies from Rhodes University. His short story, Treadmill Love, was highly commended by the 2007 Caine Prize judges. He edited ‘Kenya Burning’, a visual narrative of the Kenya post-elections crisis published by the GoDown Arts Centre and Kwani Trust in March 2009. Billy was a Regional judge for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize as well as the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature. His short story, The Gorilla’s Apprentice, was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize for African writing.

Okwiri Oduor was born in Nairobi. She is a 2014 MacDowell Colony fellow. She is currently at work on her debut novel. Her short story, My Father’s Head, was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing.

NoViolet Bulawayo is the winner of the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature. Her story “Hitting Budapest,” is the opening chapter of her novel, We Need New Names, and won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing. NoViolet’s other work has been shortlisted for the 2009 SA PEN Studzinsi Award, and has appeared in Callaloo, The Boston Review, Newsweek, and The Warwick Review, as well as in anthologies in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the UK. NoViolet recently earned her MFA at Cornell University, where her work has been recognized with a Truman Capote Fellowship. She will be attending Stanford in the fall as a Wallace Stegner Fellow for 2012-2014. NoViolet was born and raised in Zimbabwe.

Karen Jennings was born in Cape Town in 1982. She holds Master’s degrees in both English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. Karen’s stories and poetry have been published in journals across the globe, in countries as diverse as Nigeria, Australia and Greece, and on several websites. Her short story Andries Tatane received an honourable mention in a competition organised by Eyelands in Greece.

Yewande Omotoso was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria with her Nigerian father, West Indian mother and two older brothers. She and her family moved to South Africa in 1992 and have lived there ever since. She is an architect; space and buildings being a passion of hers second only to words and literature. She currently lives in Cape Town working as a designer, freelance writer and novelist.