What the- Kwani?

Excerpt from a review of Kwani? 4 - in Artmatters

For its liberal use of not-so-polite four-letter words, the first editorial by Billy Kahora—why was it necessary to have two editorials, anyway?—is one of the Achilles’ heels in Kwani?4. And now that we have mentioned obscenity, what is a naked man doing running across the pages of Kwani? 4 with his accentuated private parts leading the way in Running by Jackie Lebo?

Why does Kwani? relish the use of four-letter words in its articles, editor Binyavanga Wainaina and your assistant Billy Kahora? To paraphrase Shailja Patel’s poem, An Open Letter to Certain Male Performance Poets, we may pose: “…Show me how: aesthetically, stylistically, morally, metrically, rhythmically” four letter words are crucial to your writing.

- Read full review here.

Chimamanda-Binyavanga Workshop

Caine Winner & founding editor of Kwani? Binyavanga Wainaina (middle) with journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown & Brian Chikwava (Caine winner, 2004) - photographed by the blogger @ the British Museum on October 15th, 2005. Wainaina teams up with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to run a creative writing Workshop planned for July in Lagos, Nigeria. Details in Farafina's press notice - below

~ * ~

Creative Writing Workshop in July

Chimamanda Adichie and the Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina will be teaching a creative writing class in Lagos in July.

The class will be run as an informal workshop and will meet for a fewhours every day to discuss assigned readings as well as the writing ofthe workshop participants. The idea is to encourage and promote reading and imaginative writing. To apply, please send a sample of fiction or non-fiction to udonandu@gmail. com No poetry please.

You will be notified by e-mail if you are selected as part of the workshop and will receive further information about the dates and venue. Entries must be pasted in the body of the e-mail. No attachments please.

Deadline for submission is June 15. Notifications will be sent by July 10.

--FARAFINA

Have you read...?

This is Farafina vol 7, guest edited by Okey Ndibe and with a pack of contributors including Ogaga Ifowodo, Patrice Nganang, Marcia Kure, Helon Habila and Patrick Wilmot. And there's myself in there too (with my story The Beaten Track).

Published in Lagos, Farafina (meaning 'Africa' in Bambara) is doing from West Africa what the journal Chimurenga ('liberation struggle'/'revolution' in Shona) does from South Africa - and which Wasafiri ('Cultural traveller' in Kiswahili) has been doing from London for over 20 years. And let's not forget Kwani? (meaning the equivalent of the Yoruba/Nigerian 'bawo ni?' - how is it?).

Interesting names, all - but must reads. Definitely.

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Kwani? LitFest

Kwani? Literary Festival 2006

M.G Vassanji and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are two of the names joining Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenyan Caine winning writer and founder of East Africa's most talked about LitMag, Kwani?) in Nairobi next month for the Kwani? Litfest.

The festival holds between 11 - 28 December 2006.

Writing seminars and workshops (from 15 - 20 December) feature on the programme.

There will be music from DJ Ntone Edjabe, editor of Chimurenga Magazine - the next edition (Futbol & Politricks) will be launched @ the Kwani LitFest on December 14.

Please see the Kwani? LitFest Blog for more info.