International Authors Book Club

Read an author of your choosing from a predetermined country. May's nation is Kenya.

We will meet each third Thursday of the month to discuss your author, their works, and any themes they explore.

For disability accommodations, please contact a Programs Manager for SFPL at 505-955-6786 or 505-955-2817.

To get you started, check out our list of contemporary and literary award-winning authors although this sampling is a fraction of the writers from Kenya. The bolded titles are available through your Santa Fe Public Library as books or (if noted) ebooks (Hoopla or Overdrive/Libby).

Suggested authors:

Khadija Abdalla Bajaber, author of The House of Rust

The House of Rust tells the story of a girl who goes to the sea to search for her fisherman father, accompanied by a scholar’s cat. A Bildungsroman and magical realism book, it has been praised by critics because of how it fuses reality and elements of magic to narrate on Swahili culture and Mombasa as a place. The book won the inaugural Ursula K. Le Guin Prize For fiction. 

Jackson Biko, author of Thursdays

If you want to read modern Kenyan books about the youth of today and Kenyan culture, consider this popular Nairobi blogger. His debut is about a Nairobi band, the Vina Wira. Most nights they play at a sketchy Nairobi bar, but on Thursdays, the band tries their luck playing outside a recording label company. 

G.V. Desani, author of All About H. Hatterr

Born of Indian parents in Nairobi, Govindas Vishnoodas Desani is best known for All About H. Hatterr, first published in Great Britain in 1948, which cast an absurdist, comedic light on the plight of a common man in a multicultural, pan-ethnic world. 

T.S. Eliot said of the book’s rapid-fire style, "… In all my experience, I have not met with anything quite like it. It is amazing that anyone should be able to sustain a piece of work in this style and tempo at such length.”

Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla, author of Ode to Lata and The Two Krishnas

The American writer born of Indian Shia Muslim parents in Mombasa, where he lived with his grandparents until 18. He is most famous for his 2002 novel Ode to Lata, that was adapted to a film in 2008 under the title The Ode.

Dhalla's follow-up novel, The Two Krishnas draws from romantic Sufi poetry and archetypal Hindu mythology. It paints a picture of infidelity and political upheaval across three continents.

Muthoni Garland, author of Tracking the Scent of My Mother, Odour of Fate, Helicopter Beetles: Obsession, Fear and Longing

Garland is a founder member of Storymoja, a writer’s collective based in Nairobi which is behind the publishing house with the same name, StoryMoja Publishers.

Moraa Gitaa, author of The Kikango Oracle and Let’s Talk About This (both ebooks) and Crucible for Silver and Furnace for Gold

Gitaa's stories focus on the vulnerable, underserved, marginal and marginalized members of contemporary African society.  Someone is stealing Kigango (Singular) / Vigango (Plural) Mijikenda cultural and memorial totem effigies placed on tombstones of departed, respected, and revered, spiritual elders. 

Let's Talk About This begins the morning after two young girls from two different cultural backgrounds, who have both suffered the trauma of rape and sexual assault, meet at the Angels of Mercy Girl's Crisis Centre in Nairobi.

Francis Davis Imbuga, author of Aminata, Betrayal and The Green Cross of Kafira

The Howard University professor is one of the best Kenyan writers in terms of his works’ popularity and impact, merging drama and social commentaries in his books. 

Wanuri Kahiu, author of Rusties and The Wooden Camel (children’s picture book)

The award-winning film director, producer and author is considered one of Africa's most aspiring directors, being part of a new, vibrant crop of talents representing contemporary African culture." She is also the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media collective dedicated to supporting African art. 

Her most-recognized film Rafiki (Friend), is available at SFPL. It is the first Kenyan feature film (2018) to portray a love story between two girls.

Peter Kimani, author of Dance of the Jakaranda

Set in the shadow of Kenya's independence from Great Britain, this story reimagines the special circumstances that brought black, brown, and white men together to lay the railroad that heralded the birth of the nation.

John Kiriamiti, author of Abduction Squad, My Life in Crime, My Life with a Criminal: Milly’s Story, Son of Fate (all ebooks) and the Sinister Trophy

The former bank robber turned popular fiction and nonfiction writer is now a philanthropist and social reformer rehabilitating street children and thieves in Murang’a. He also owns and edits the newspaper, The Sharpener, which he established after a government ban on the Gikuyu dialect periodical Inooro in 1995.

Wanjiru Koinange, author of The Havoc of Choice

Koinange’s novel revolves around the infamous Kenyan election of 2007, which caused such civil unrest that hundreds of people died and thousands more were displaced.

Kinyanjui Kombani, author of Den of Inequities and The Last Villains of Molo

Popularly known as "The Banker who Writes", the novelist, playwright, scriptwriter and literary critic and activist is best known for his novels The Last Villains of Molo and Den of Inequities which are required reading for college students in Kenya.

Muthoni Gacanja Likimani, author of They Shall Be Chastised, What Does a Man Want? and Passbook Number F. 47927: Women and Mau Mau in Kenya

Likimani, whose age is either 99 or 100 as of late March 2026, is an activist and writer, who has published works of both fiction and non-fiction, as well as children's books. The daughter of one of the first Kenyan Anglican Church ministers was the first Kenyan beauty queen, the first African to establish a public relations firm in Kenya and one of the country's earliest female authors and TV producers for the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.

Idza Luhumyo, author of several short stories including Five Years Next Sunday (eaudiobook)

Luhumyo is a short story writer, whose work explores Kenya coastal identities.  In July 2020, she was announced as the inaugural recipient of the Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award along with the 2021 Short Story Day Africa Prize with her story "Five Years Next Sunday", which also won the 2022 Caine Prize for African Fiction.

Five Years Next Sunday is the story of Pili, a woman who believes the rain has been magically stored in her hair during a near 5-year drought. She is tricked into cutting her hair by a white romantic rival, leading to consequences suffered by her aunts years earlier.

Charles Mangua, author of Son of a Woman, Son of Woman: Mombasa, A Tail in the Mouth and Kanina and I

First published in 1971, Mangua’s Son Of A Woman is an autobiographical postcolonial Kenyan crime fiction novel. It features a main character named Dodge Kiunya whose story is told using a humorous and satirical approach, allegorically exploring life issues like incarceration and sex work. 

Tony Mochama, author of Princess Adhis and the Naja Coca Broda and Run, Cheche, Run.

Mochama’s style of telling unique stories has made him a household name in the Kenyan literature scene with its focus on Kenyan urban culture.

Meja Mwangi, author of The Cockroach Dance, Going Down the River Road, Kill Me Quick and The Mzungu Boy (ebook)

The prolific author is known for novels that often tackle social issues and the challenges of urban life in Kenya. His engaging storytelling and vivid characters have won him numerous accolades, starting in the mid-70s with Going Down River Road, a gritty portrayal of life in Nairobi, focusing on the struggles of the urban poor and continuing with realistic examination of urban decay in The Cockroach Dance. 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (James Ngũgĩ), author of Decolonising the Mind, A Grain of Wheat, Matigari, Minutes of Glory and Other Stories, Weep Not, Child; Petals of Blood, The River Between, and Wizard of the Crow

The prolific author, playwright, and academic wrote extensively on the themes of colonialism, cultural identity, and social justice including about the impact of the Mau Mau uprising on Kenyan families in Weep Not, Child and in The River Between, which tells the story of two villages divided by differing responses to the white man’s influence.

Ngũgĩ’s decision to write in Gikuyu and his subsequent imprisonment for his political beliefs advocating Kenyans to use their mother tongues and avoid English and French highlight his resistance to cultural imperialism.

Mukoma wa Ngugi, author of Nairobi Heat, Black Star Nairobi, Killing Sahara, Mr’s Shaw and Unbury Our Dead With Song

The son of Ngugi wa Thiongo is an associate professor of English at Cornell, from where he administers the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature which promotes reading and writing in Kiswahili by awarding prizes to authors with outstanding Kiswahili fiction, poetry, short story collections and memoir manuscripts.

Okwiri Oduor, author of Things They Lost

Considered one of the rising talents in African literature, her debut novel, Things They Lost, is set at the intersection of the spirit world and the human one unveiling the dizzying dualities of love, at its most intoxicating and all-encompassing.

Margaret Atieno Ogola, author of I Swear By Apollo

Ogola’s I Swear By Apollo was written as a sequel to her renowned book The River and the Source which had won the 1995 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. The book follows three AIDS’ orphans Lisa, Johnny and Alicia alongside their aunt Wandia —a protagonist who was a character in the prequel The River And The Source as well. The narrative of the book concerns the orphans as they try to understand their Luo and Kenyan identity at the dawn of the 21st century.

Grace Ogot, author of Land Without Thunder, The Other Woman and The Promised Land (both ebooks)

Ogot was one of the first female Kenyan writers to gain international recognition in the late 1960s. Her work was instrumental in bringing African women’s narratives to the forefront and providing a more nuanced portrayal of Kenyan culture and history. 

The Promised Land is a novel about migration and settlement, exploring the lives of Luo people moving to Tanzania. The Other Woman is a collection of stories with adroit imagery used to unveil some of the evils, which bedevil modern society, such as brutal violence, lust for power and wealth, and family turmoil.

Makena Onjerika, author of several short stories

Onjerika won the 2018 Caine Prize for African Fiction for her short story “Fanta Blackcurrant,” published in Wasafiri (2017). The NYU creative writing masters graduate founded the Nairobi Fiction Writing Workshop and edited the anthology Digital Bedbugs, composed of the stories from the workshop 

She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Ghanian writer Margaret Busby and appears in Twenty Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing.

Troy Onyango, author of the short story collection For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings

The titular story of the collection won him the inaugural Nyanza Literary Festival Prize in 2016. He is the founder of Lolwe (June 2020), which is considered among the leading online literary magazines in Africa.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, author of The Dragonfly Sea and Dust

Owuor is a celebrated contemporary novelist and short story writer. Her lyrical prose and deep exploration of Kenyan history and identity have earned her international recognition. Dust delves into the complexities of Kenyan history, focusing on a family’s secrets and the nation’s turbulent past while The Dragonfly Sea is a sweeping narrative that follows a young girl’s journey from the Kenyan coast to China and Turkey, exploring themes of identity and belonging.

Various authors, Twenty Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Caine Prize for African Writing - often referred to as the 'African Booker Prize' - this 2020 collection showcases all 20 prize-winning short stories, each with its own unique take on modern African life.

Binyavanga Wainaina was the first Kenyan to win the Caine Prize in 2002, followed by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (2003), Okwiri Oduor (2014). Their winning selections are featured while more recent winners, Makena Onjerika (2018) and Idza Luhumyo (2022), are not. 

M.G. Vassanji, author of The Book of Secrets, Everything There Is, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and The Magic of Saida

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is mainly told in flashbacks. While living in exile in Canada, the now adult Vikram Lall contemplates his life. The novel covers in painful detail the strains on their family, the violence of the Mau Mau Uprising (1952-60), and the dangers of involvement in political corruption.

Iman Verjee, author of Who Will Catch Us as We Fall

After three years overseas, Leena returns home to discover her family unchanged. Leena begins a secret affair that forces her to again question her place in a country she once called home. Interlinked with her story is that of Jeffery: a corrupt policeman whose questionable actions have unexpected and catastrophic consequences. 

Binyavanga Wainaina, author of How to Write About Africa: Collected Works and One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir

Wainaina was a celebrated writer, journalist, and the founder of Kwani? (So What?), a leading literary magazine in Kenya. He was known for his groundbreaking work How to Write About Africa, an incisive and unapologetic piece that exposed the racist ways Western media depicts Africa, with implicit bias and subjective clichés, changed the game for African writers and helped set the stage for a new generation of authors. His coming out as gay in 2014 after the “discovery of a lost chapter” of his 2011 memoir was a landmark moment for LGBTQ+ rights in Kenya.