No Prof Kabaji: The real crisis isn't reading but national values

Prof Igara Kabaji promotes the culture of reading among the young. [Egara Kabaji]

I’m writing in response to Prof Egara Kabaji’s article titled “Sorry state of our creativity and crisis of shrinking minds” (‘The Saturday Standard’, November 29, 2025). In the article, Prof Kabaji began by referencing an event co-organised and hosted by Daystar University in August this year. where creative writers met to discuss, among other things, the importance of having, and belonging to, such collectives as the Creative Writers Association of Kenya (C-WAK). I should, perhaps, mention that I attended the aforesaid event and agree with Prof Kabaji’s representation not only of its impressive attendance, but also of the scope and loftiness of its agenda.

Prof Kabaji, in his article, however, omitted the all-important fact that the event was youth-dominated, a near-accurate reflection of the demographic hue at most literature fora in our country lately. A majority of literary events across Kenya, especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, have been either youth-organised or youth-dominated, partly because younger writers have been, and continue to be responsible for the now-fashionable self-publishing frenzy. Up to three out of every five newly stocked titles at Nuria Books are self-published or authored by a young writer.Many local writers’ collectives today, including Qwani? and Rafinki, have predominantly youthful memberships.