A magazine of non-fiction and reportage from Eastern Africa (for now, and broadly, with the excpetion of accepting pieces from elsewhere) publishing rare, deeply reported stories about the past, the present and the future and how the three relate to each other and especially to now.
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EDITORIAL

Isaac Otidi Amuke :

EDITORIAL

In 2003, my dear friend and brother the late Kenyan writer and satirist Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina, to whom I owe a lot, made an audacious statement which I have found myself returning to.

NON-FICTION and REPORTAGE

Kiprop Kimutai :

A STRANGER IN SAINT-PAUL DE VENCE

I was reading James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on The Mountain on my phone in a ‘Double M’ bus, stuck in Nairobi traffic when I received the news.
Paul Goldsmith :

MAGOGONI BEFORE THE PORT  

The bull elephant emerging from the thicket swooped up Hassan before his daughter’s cries of warning left her mouth. He hoisted the man high in his coiled trunk, then dashed him to the ground.
Paula Ihozo Akugizibwe :

YOU LOOK ILLEGAL

On a sunny Cape Town morning in early 2008, I am enjoying my daily ten-minute stroll to work. I cross the street outside my apartment building and enter the Company’s Gardens
Dalle Abraham :

THINKING BACK TO GOVERNMENT QUARTERS

In 1995, my young parents moved our family from a village linked by a labyrinth of dusty footpaths, ineffectual Euphorbia fencing, a few grass-thatched roofs, loud neighbours, goat pens, paraffin
Wanja Michuki :

GOING BACK INTO THE POOL 

In my first year of primary school, the day of the week I most looked forward to was Tuesday. Lessons began with my one true indulgence, swimming in the baby pool.
Asha Ahmed Mwilu :

THE DRESS MY FATHER BOUGHT ME 

I was a scrawny eight-year-old with a coily afro when I first heard a Bob Marley song. It was 1996, and I was visiting my father and his new family.
A.K. Kaiza  :

THE VIOLENT BIRTH OF KAMPALA  

Even under a bright noon sky, the darkness at the confluence of Nsalo Road, Sir Apollo Kagwa Road and Boundary Road persists like an ineradicable, congenital condition.
Clifton Gachagua  :

INHERITING BURNING LIBRARIES 

I grew up with the Bible and the Quran, as I’m sure many people have, the former because I was raised Catholic and the later because my brother, busy at the time with madrassa.
Hadassah Saya :

NOW WE SKATE

The last time I tried to kill myself I was twenty-five years old. I stood on a ledge nine floors from the ground, staring into the abyss that was my life.
Diana Chepkemoi :

ESCAPING DOMESTIC SLAVERY IN SAUDI ARABIA 

The first time I watched Nairobi Half Life I promised myself to never suffer the same fate as Mwas,the film’s main protagonist.Driven by the urge to seek greener pastures in Nairobi

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