Event: Writers in Conversation: Meet the Jaladans

Date: Sunday, September 21, 2014

Time: 6:30pm

Venue: National Museums of Kenya, Louis Leakey Auditorium

Moderator: Nicholas Orem Ochiel

Kwani Trust hosts writer Orem Ochiel as he leads a conversation with Linda Musita, Mehul Gohil and Clifton Gachagua on their involvement in pan-African writers’ collective, Jalada. These three writers are fresh and exciting voices in Kenya’s literary scene and are among Africa 39, a list of the 39 most promising fiction writers from Africa. They will read excerpts from their writings and discuss how the online platform has impacted their work. 

Orem Ochiel is a lapsed mathematician. He writes reviews for Open Letters Monthly and essays for The New Inquiry.  His fiction has been published with the Jalada Africa Writers' Collective.  His novella, "The Haggard Masturbator" was long listed for the inaugural Kwani? Manuscript Project.  He is an alumnus of the 2014 Farafina Creative Writing Workshop. Twitter: @nochiel

Clifton Gachagua is the winner of the Sillerman Prize for African Poetry, 2013. He has recently published a volume of poetry, Madman at Kilifi (University of Nebraska Press) and appears in a chapbook box set, Seven New Generation African Poets (University of Nebraska Press). He was recently selected for Africa39, a selection of the most promising 39 authors under the age of 40 from Sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora. Clifton works at Kwani? as an assistant editor. Twitter: @cliftongachagua

  
Linda Musita is an Africa39 author and a member of the Jalada Africa Writers’ Collective. She loves books, to read and to keep, and hopes that some day soon her name will be on the cover of one. Twitter: @ivorypunk

 
Mehul Gohil is a writer born and living in Nairobi, Kenya. He won the ‘Kenya I Live In’ short story competition organized in 2010 by Kwani Trust for his short story ‘Farah Aideed Goes To Gulf War’. He has previously been published in Kwani 06. When he is not writing, Gohil enjoys a good game of chess and playing for the Kenya National Chess Team. Twitter: @mehulgorilla