Our publishers are like hyenas feasting on their young

There are things about which we must not think twice before we decide under this bright sun burning above our heads here in East Africa. They are as obvious as an elephant standing. I do not mind if you disagree with me, but I harbour a darkly low opinion of writers cloned through any process of ‘initial guidance’ – the kind that transforms publishers and their editors into weekly televangelists (they have lately been joined by a respectable friend, ‘the queen bee of guide books’). It makes me fairly pessimistic about Kenyan literature.

The danger is how publishers delude themselves that the clout of Kenyan writing can be neatly detached from the rewards that ought to accrue from the task of writing. My low opinion of cloned writers is because of clandestine rings like Kwani Trust, whose tight, mouth-to-mouth proselytising has resulted in a chorus of literary monotony involving libidinous commas and orgasmic hyphens.