The Master of Words

Billy Kahora has had two nods from the prestigious Caine prize. The first was in 2007 when his story Treadmill Love was highly commended by the judges. The second time around came in 2012 when he was nominated for the prestigious prize sometimes referred to as the ‘African Booker’ for his story Urban Zoning.

In addition to short stories, Kahora has written asearing biography, The True Story of David Munyakei’ about one of Africa’s biggest whistle blowers. He scripted an award winning film  -Soul Boy. He edited ‘Kenya Burning’, a visual narrative of the Kenya post-elections crisis that was published by the GoDown Arts Centre and Kwani Trust in March 2009. Kahora was a Regional judge for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.It doesn’t stop there. Kahora is one of the major forces behind the literary journal Kwani?In other words, Billy Kahora is a master of words.

All this and more are what make Billy Kahora the ideal facilitator for one of the Storymoja Hay Festival’s most provocative literary sessions, “Who are contemporary African writers writing for?”. The festival runs from the 13th to the 16th September 2012 at the Nairobi National Museum. For more information, please visit www.storymojahayfestival.com