Kwani Trust and British Council will collaborate with Granta to host a week of literary events in Nairobi between 19th - 23rd June 2013. The joint week of literary programming will include a launch of the latest Granta issue, Best of Young British Novelists 4, a three-day writing workshop, readings by visiting writers Nadifa Mohamed and Adam Foulds at Daystar University and a symposium based on related work by Kwani Trust.

Nadifa Mohammed and Adam Foulds will read their pieces from the latest Granta issue joined by Kenyan writers published by Kwani Trust on 23rd June 2013 at a Sunday Salon event at The Elephant (formerly Kifaru Gardens). The two writers will also tutor at a writing workshop led by Granta’s Deputy Editor Ellah Allfrey and joined by Kwani Trust’s Managing Editor, Billy Kahora from 19th-21st June 2013. 15 selected emerging Kenyan writers will join visiting writers from Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi and Nigeria for the workshop and other literary events.

A public call-out calling for submissions to attend the writing workshop has been circulated and selection of participants is ongoing. Regional British Council offices have partnered with literary organisations from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda to select writers to attend the writing workshops, along with a corresponding Literature Programmers’ workshop with participants from the countries above.

For further information, images or interviews, please contact: Velma Kiome, General Manager, Kwani Trust on v.kiome@kwani.org

Notes for Editors:

• Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4 was first published in Spring 2013 and announced the rising stars of twenty British novelists under forty that are predicted to shape the future of literature in Britain. Since 1983, the Best of Young Novelists series has introduced readers to scores of future literary lights long before they became household names, including Salman Rushdie, A.L. Kennedy, Jonathan Franzen and Nicole Krauss. Best of Young British Novelists lists were published in 1983, 1993 and 2003. Best of Young American Novelists were published in 1996 and 2007. In 2010, Granta 113: The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists was released, marking the first time in history that Granta’s Best of Young Novelists series looked outside the English-speaking world. Granta 121: The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists launched in 2012
• Granta is the quarterly magazine of the best new writing from around the world. Relaunched in 1979 – with twelve international editions of the magazine in countries including Brazil, Israel, Norway and China – Granta is committed to witnessing the world through stories.
• Adam Foulds (1974) is a poet and novelist from London. He has published two novels, The Truth About These Strange Times and The Quickening Maze, and The Broken Word, a narrative poem set during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya at the end of British imperial rule. He is the recipient of a number of literary awards, including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, the Costa Poetry Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the South Bank Show Prize for Literature, the Encore Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. The Quickening Maze was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010. ‘A World Intact’ is an excerpt from his new novel, In the Wolf’s Mouth, published in 2014 by Jonathan Cape in the UK and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US.
• Nadifa Mohamed (1981) was born in Somalia and moved to Britain in 1986. Her first novel, Black Mamba Boy, published in 2010, was longlisted for the Orange Prize; shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Dylan Thomas Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the PEN/Open Book Award; and won the Betty Trask Award. ‘Filsan’ is an excerpt from her new novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in the UK and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US.
• Established in 2003, Kwani Trust is a Kenyan based literary network dedicated to developing quality creative writing and committed to the growth of the creative industry through the publishing and distribution of contemporary African writing, offering training opportunities, producing literary events and establishing and maintaining global literary networks. Our vision is to create a society that uses its stories to see itself more coherently.
• The British Council is the UK’s leading cultural relations organisation. The Literature department works with writers, publishers, producers, translators and other sector professionals across literature, publishing and education to develop innovative, high-quality literary programmes and collaborations that provide opportunities for cultural exchange and mutual understanding at festivals, book fairs, conferences, workshops and standalone events around the world.
• Throughout 2013, the British Council and Granta are collaborating on an international showcase of contemporary British novelists, which features the twenty writers selected by Granta’s panel of judges. The first international events – including readings and conversation – were announced on 15 April 2013 and will be taking place in more than ten countries including Russia, Qatar and India.