Khainga O’Okwemba

In 1947, a young Indian boy from Punjab Province docked at the port of Mombasa, the Kenyan coral island perched on the Indian Ocean.

One of the most stimulating publications I have recently read was a book called ‘Herstory’, a title that is a rejection of the term ‘History’, which modern feminists view as a patriarchic term.

Before I left for a writers’ conference in Cairo recently, that was organised by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Culture in collaboration with Egypt PEN and supported by International PEN, I had spent the last four days in Nairobi with Professor Okello Oculi, the Nigerian based Ugandan professor

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There, among those verdant meadows, oh Nefertiti
Immolated and transposed into a Langi Egyptologist
I played the banjo, awaiting a daughter of the Nile,
Lo! ‘Twas the Nightingale Arabica coming, and none!

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