The Department of Literature, University of Nairobi, in collaboration with the University of Exeter will host the “Eastern African Literary and Publishing Networks Conference” from Monday 10th to Tuesday 11th August, 2026. The conference, organized by Prof Miriam Maranga-Musonye, Prof Godwin Siundu (both of University of Nairobi) and Prof Kate Wallis of University of Exeter, brings together scholars from continental Africa, Europe and Americas to discuss aspects of the publishing landscape in eastern Africa during the 1960s and ‘70s, arguably the most consequential decades in the region’s literary outputs.
An important activity during the conference will be the launch of a recently published book, Ngugi wa Thiong’o in Context, edited by Professor James Ogude, a Kenyan academic based in South Africa, and immediate former director of Center for Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, also co-sponsor of the launch that will happen at University of Nairobi Towers on Monday 10th August 2026, starting from 5.00 P.M.
The book explores the contextual influences on the thought patterns and writings of Kenya’s most influential writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o. These influences include his exposure to Mau Mau violence as a young child, his subsequent education at Makerere University College and Leeds University, his experience with peasants in community theatre of Kamirithu, and his excursions in the wider world where economic and racial differences informed his themes in his fiction and essays.
The book draws on perspectives by, among others, Kenya-based academics Professor Kimani Njogu, Professor Peter Amuka, Professor Garnette Oluoch-Olunya, Professor Tom Michael Mboya, Professor Peter Simatei, Professor Godwin Siundu of University of Nairobi.
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