Zukiswa Wanner

How is it possible that Ugandan musicians have managed to get in the skin and soul of their populace that they can actually live of their art; Nigerian writers of my generation can claim to be full-time writers and still survive; and South African actors have starred in blockbuster movies and yet, in spite of the many brilliant artists in Kenya, few in this country can claim the same? I have been on the Nairobi artistic scene for a very short time so I do not claim to be an expert but what I do know is this: there are more musicians than Eric Wainaina and more writers than Binyavanga Wainaina (much as his ‘How to Write about Africa’ is my most quoted creative non-fiction piece).

While my ignorance as a South African to art from this country cannot be discounted, yet I feel the problem of not being better known should be placed on the shoulders of the Kenyan artistic scene –  it’s the marketing stupid.

On Sunday night I had the fortune of hearing two of the most brilliant jazz vocalists I have heard. EVER. And it was in Nairobi that I heard them. I was like ‘hold on, how come the world doesn’t know y’all?’ OK granted the girl is known in Europe where she had just returned from a concert but the young man, Tony, blew me away when the two of them improvised on one of June the Jazz Girl’s song. I was later disappointed that there was no recording of the events and the music because I wanted to get home and in a few years time when  hopefully these two are known all over the world I would be able to claim that I KNEW THEM FIRST. And yet while it may happen for June, chances of it happening for Tony and many other Kenyan singers are very slim because there does not seem to be a concrete marketing plan for them. From some of the singers I talked to, I almost got that sense that I grew up with in Zim that one must go to school and study and be employed by someone. That belief that music as an art should be a hobby but everyone must have a job – any job, so long as it is not an artistic pursuit. The radio stations here seem to be unaware that they are in Kenya where there might possibly be Kenyan musicians. I am not lying when I say that in the time I have been here, I have not heard one single local song played on radio but I think I know all the lyrics to Ne-Yo’s Miss Independent. Kenyan musicians must also take responsibility. I fail to understand why they cannot do some creative marketing when they manage to put a little funding aside and bring out a CD, may be give some promo copies to matatu drivers so their music is played in matatus and therefore be introduced to the Kenyan consumers? If the work is as good as I have heard, I am certain that people will buy in droves.

In July I was with a handful of Kenyan writers at the Pan African Literary Forum in Ghana where I talked to some of the possibility of coming here. Upon return to South Africa, I started writing to two organisations that I knew were involved on the literary scene asking for an invite because I was keen to get into the Kenyan market (for no other reason than that the Kenyans I came across in Johannesburg appear to have enjoyed my work). Much enthusiasm was shown via email by the comrades from the two different organisations and all I requested was an invitation letter. I do not know how many emails I sent to them reminding them of that invite but I do know they were a lot.

After months of waiting, my friend June suggested that perhaps I should forget about an invite from these highly esteemed organisations and she would send said invite. It is possible that the two organisations just believed that my type of writing was not something they felt they needed in Kenya in which case they could merely have told me so instead of sending enthusiastic emails of promises. On the Tuesday before my arrival one of the organisations finally sent me an invitation to be a reader at one of their events. They asked for my biography, which I sent with glee (better late than never, I thought). Imagine my horror when yesterday I looked at the website and found that not only was my bio not placed with the other readers but, somehow no-one had bothered to spell my name correctly. Then when the readings happened, half the people reading were the same people I saw reading in Accra and half the crowd were their friends. Now imagine for a minute that I had been relying on these guys exclusively, as many Kenyan writers are doing, on marketing me? Fortunately for me, I have good friends and have been warmly received in the country but should it really take a non-Kenyan to point these things out?

Of course I would be seriously lying if I said the Kenyan literary scene is the only literary scene that has this much intellectual snobbishness. So too do many countries but here’s the thing, writers will never be able to live of their writing if we only market to our twenty friends while claiming that ‘black people don’t read’. Perhaps if we let them know that our art is out there, if we advertised way in advance about events to as many people as possible, fictional publishing could finally carry itself instead of leaning on non-fiction?

Having hung out at the Kenya National Theatre, I also know there are more actors than that Coca-Cola Brrr guy (who South Africans will also remember from the  ‘Africans as Savage Dictators’ Vodacom advert) but I cannot speak with authority about actors as I did not get to see any in action and I have been away from television since arrival.

So Kenyan artists, let me get your tuppence. How better can you market yourselves and how better can organisations within your nation market you?

A free copy of my book for creative suggestions, let’s get talking.

And thanks for hosting me. The world awaits you!

As we go into the holiday season, I thought my rant should be focused at a bookstore chain called CNA. Like many bibliophiles, I am big on buying books as presents for family and friends but because I am also a writer, I tend to buy books of local writers that I have read and enjoyed during the year (the one time that I can up fellow writers’ royalties and afterwards remind them of it so they can buy me free drinks!). I live in the Southern suburbs of Johannesburg (though some may argue about the meaning of ‘suburb’ when used to describe my hood) and am within 20 minutes of  three shopping malls and one shopping centre. What all these shopping places have in common is a bookshop cum newsagent chain now owned by the Edgars group of companies called CNA. The thing with CNA is that it is such an accessible bookstore that even non-readers know about it.

In June of this year I had the fortune of sharing a table with one of the head honchos of CNA at some literature prize ceremony in Cape Town. I asked this gentleman why there wasn’t any South African literature at a bookstore chain that is supposedly Proudly South African? He gave me his card (which I am sad to say, I lost otherwise I would be sending this complaint to him and not to my blog) informing me that some changes were coming. Alas, up until today, very few changes have been wrought. And what riles even more is that, although this gentleman was at a South African Award ceremony, not even the nominees and the prize winners for that award ceremony can be found in CNA today. How do I know?

Yesterday I was at the CNA closest to me (Southdale Mall). I have to applaud the number of Mandela and other political books that the store is carrying BUT there was absolutely nothing else. Well ok, in works of fiction we were represented by John van der Ruit (whose Spud series is absolutely hilarious I have recommended it to all my male friends who went to boarding school and I may soon stalk John for a percentage of his royalties), and weirdly too under fiction the packers in the store had seen fit to place dear old Ndumiso Ngcobo’s collection of essays, Some of my Best Friends are White.  And that, folks, was all you could find from this country and continent. If you were looking for Jodi Piccoult, Jackie Collins, Marion Keyes, John Grisham, or any other non-African books though, they were plenty.

There is the big argument that South Africans don’t read but to be truly honest, only the laanie bookworms I know are the ones who carry Exclusive Bookstore (another chain of bookstore, this one carries lots of South African books from Gaborone to Cape Town) cards. The rest of the people buy their reading material (magazines et al) in CNA or supermarkets. My question is, how can South African prospective readers support South African or African literature at that, when they don’t know it exists because the one bookstore that they go into doesn’t carry it?

Lately, I have even become more convinced that South Africans are readers. Friends have called me and strangers have messaged on Facebook telling me they saw me in Cosmo, O, or whatever magazine and asking where they can buy my books. Conclusion: South Africans do read (otherwise they would not have bought the magazines), they just do not have access to South African works (and if you still want to argue, look at the sales of Daily Sun and Sunday World).  

While it is true that many people buy their magazines and newspapers in supermarkets, would life not be so much easier if a shopper at Southdale or Southgate could, after reading about a South African writer in a magazine, pop into the only bookshop in their mall (in this case CNA) while grocery shopping and see what other books are available to them from South Africa? The truth is, with novel reading many people tend to enjoy starting with what they are familiar with and may move on to other things. I am eternally grateful for small bookstores like Boekehuis and Xarra Books and bigger ones like Exclusive for my book buying but I do not always get the chance to travel to the places where these bookstores are located and when in my neighbourhood, I should like to have access to books from this country too. I will continue with my normal rave and that is that, literature will continue to be a marginal industry in this country as long as booksellers, writers and publishers, don’t do their bit. May be it’s time CNA seriously considers this and starts selling local to prove to us how we really can at CNA because right now it looks like we cannot.

This could be just my experience in the South of Johannesburg. I would be keen to get other writers, readers, and booksellers (including CNA)’s input on this one.