Kwani?-Kenya literature zone!

Kwani? is a journal founded by some of Kenya 's most exciting new writers, and published by Kwani Trust. The Kwani? web journal has been in existence for close to three years now. Kwani? has published 3 editions of the book to date.
Before Kwani? Kenyans had stopped buying and reading literary material outside of school texts. In three years, we have sold over 5000 copies of the journal, and have gotten a new generation of Kenyans reading. All together 30, 000 Kenyans have read Kwani? and we continue to grow. Kwani? is a serious publication – over 300 pages of new journalism and fiction of experimental writing, poetry, cartoons photographs, literary travel writing, creative non-fiction, yet we sell more copies than all Kenyan popular magazines, except Parents and Eve magazine. Much is said about a lack of a reading culture in Kenya; what we have found is that the literary intelligentsia, together with African publishers and founders of literary projects have lost touch with a new generation of Africans who are sick of being talked down to; who are seeking to understand the bewildering world around them – to be validated in print.
This year Kwani Trust will publish a quarterly magazine and several books including the memoirs of Joseph Muthee, who spent five years in Kenya 's British concentration camps the 1950s. This memoir, a valuable historical document of a little-known period of our history is bound to cause waves. We will publish it in its original Kiswahili and in and English translation. An oral version, filmed and distributed by cassette in Gikuyu, will also be produced.
Kwani Trust has received institutional funding from The Ford Foundation for these projects since 2003.