🇰🇪 MUTHONI MUIRURI for 🇿🇦 The African Imaginary at Ake Book Festival 🇳🇬 Muthoni Muiruri is a Nairobi-based cultural curator, literary advocate and The African Imaginary’s new East African books specialist, whose expertise we are much looking forward to sharing with our audience. She is the co-founder of Soma Nami Books and the founder and curator of the African Book Fair, an annual hybrid book fair and festival held in Nairobi. With a background in Psychology, Muthoni is deeply curious about the complexities of the human condition, particularly how historical narratives and colonial legacies continue to shape the present. Her work sits at the intersection of literature, history and social inquiry. When she’s not immersed in books or curating literary spaces, she’s likely exploring new destinations or mulling over whether she’ll ever finish her PhD. Ever resourceful and an advocate for making access to fiction from different African countries more democratic, she’s been known to travel between book festivals with an empty suitcase which she loads up with titles not available back home!
Here are her 5 Favourite African Books:
1. She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore
2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
3. A Broken People’s Playlist by Chimeka Garricks
4. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengiste 5. Kintu by Jennifer Makumbi
