Alexander Nderitu (born 23 April 1979) is a Kenyan novelist, scriptwriter and Internet technologist. [1] He has also expressed interest in fashion design, music production, and filmed entertainment. [1] He is a signatory to the PEN Charter.
Nderitu was born Alex N. Nderitu in Nyeri, Kenya. A voracious reader of books from a young age, he always aspired to be a career writer. [1]
Coming to Nairobi in 2001, he worked as a movie reviewer and later as an Internet technologist. Having a background in IT, he explored internet options for literature. [2] In November 2002, he became Africa's first digital novelist with the internet publication of his debut novel, When the Whirlwind Passes. Initially a free download on his website, it remains Africa's most-downloaded novel. [1] In 2004, he was nominated for the Douglas Coupland Short Story Award for his tragic spy story, "Life as a Flower". In late 2007, Nderitu won a Theatre Company prize for his humorous stage play, Hannah and the Angel. [2] The play, performed an actors' group called "Fire By Ten," debuted at the Phoenix Theatre in Nairobi on Sunday 11 November 2007.
Nderitu has posted numerous poems on the Internet, some of which have also appeared in local (Kenyan) newspapers and in a VoicesNet poetry anthology.[ citation needed ]
His other works include The Patriots Club, a thriller about arms smuggling; and What's Wrong With This Picture?, a stage play about the Hollywood film-making industry.[ citation needed ]
In 2024, Alexander Nderitu under the African Griot, launched the Alexander Nderitu prize that ran from 1st May -31st May and was aimed at appreciating writers and literary workers through submissions of short creative pieces limited to 3000 words.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as "East Africa's leading novelist". He began writing in English, switching to write primarily in Gikuyu. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright has been translated into 100 languages.
William Andrew Murray Boyd is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter.
Nuruddin Farah is a Somali novelist. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published in 1970 and has been described as "one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature today". He has also written plays both for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays. Since leaving Somalia in the 1970s he has lived and taught in numerous countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa.
Nigerian literature may be roughly defined as the literary writing by citizens of the nation of Nigeria for Nigerian readers, addressing Nigerian issues. This encompasses writers in a number of languages, including not only English but Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba, and in the northern part of the county Hausa and Nupe. More broadly, it includes British Nigerians, Nigerian Americans and other members of the African diaspora.
Andrew O'Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Julia Peterkin was an American author from South Carolina. In 1929 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Novel/Literature for her novel Scarlet Sister Mary. She wrote several novels about the plantation South, especially the Gullah people of the Lowcountry. She was one of the few white authors who wrote about the African-American experience.
Packson Ngugi is a Kenyan actor. He has played roles in plays and movies, and appeared in Kenyan TV commercials. He hosted a TV show, Omo Pick A Box, in the late 1990s.
Pule Lechesa is a black South African essayist, literary critic, poet, and publisher. His published books include Four Free State Authors (2005), The Evolution of Free State Black Literature (2006), and, Omoseye Bolaji...on Awards, Authors, Literature (2007). Pule Lechesa is the founder and main editor of Phoenix Press Publishers, which continues to publish sundry fiction, poetry, short stories, and criticism. His latest published books are Essays on Free State Black Literature (2012), Bolaji in his Pomp (2013), and A pennyfor Lechesa's Thoughts (2016).
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Alex Alphonso Wheatle MBE is a British novelist, who was sentenced to a term of imprisonment after the 1981 Brixton riot in London.
Zukiswa Wanner is a South African journalist, novelist and editor born in Zambia and now based in Kenya. Since 2006, when she published her first book, her novels have been shortlisted for awards including the South African Literary Awards (SALA) and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. In 2015, she won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award for London Cape Town Joburg (2014). In 2014, Wanner was named on the Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature.
Moraa Gitaa is a Kenyan novelist, born in Mombasa. She is also a Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution researcher, cultural advocate and arts curator. She is the author of the YA novels Let's Talk About This, The Kigango Oracle, Hila and The Shark Attack.
Austin Bukenya is a Ugandan poet, playwright, novelist and academic administrator. He is the author of the novel The People's Bachelor, and a play, The Bride. He has taught languages, literature and drama at Makerere University in Uganda and universities in the UK, Tanzania and Kenya since the late 1960s. He has also held residences at universities in Rwanda and Germany. Bukenya is also a literary critic, novelist, poet and dramatist. An accomplished stage and screen actor, he was for several years Director of the Creative and Performing Arts Centre at Kenyatta University, Nairobi.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan-British novelist and short story writer. Her doctoral novel, The Kintu Saga, was shortlisted and won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. It was published by Kwani Trust in 2014 under the title Kintu. Her short story collection, Manchester Happened, was published in 2019. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story "Let's Tell This Story Properly", and emerged Regional Winner, Africa region. She was the Overall Winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She was longlisted for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature. She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. In 2018, she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in the fiction category. In 2021, her novel The First Woman won the Jhalak Prize.
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This article is focused on English-language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, Wales, and the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from former British colonies. It also includes, to some extent, the United States, though the main article for that is American literature.
Kinyanjui Kombani, popularly known as “The Banker who Writes,” is a Kenyan novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, and literature critic/activist. His novels, The Last Villains of Molo and Den of Inequities have been used for undergraduate and postgraduate education by universities in Kenya and abroad. Kombani is also a recipient of the Kenyatta University Outstanding Young Alumni Award 2014 and was recognized as a Business Daily Top 40 under 40 in 2015.
Makena Onjerika is a Kenyan writer, who won the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing, making her the fourth writer from her country to do so—following wins by Binyavanga Wainaina in 2002 and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor in 2003, and Okwiri Oduor in 2013.
Leonard Kibera (1942–1983) was a Kenyan novelist and short story writer, famous for his works Voices in the Dark (1970) and Potent Ash (1968). He was awarded third prize in the African drama contest by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1967 for his contributions to African literature.
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