Audio By Vocalize
One of the most ironic observations about the 1980s through the early 1990s is that while printing and publishing technology meant only a few books could roll off the press, that was the time when the popular East African novel thrived.
By the popular novel, I loosely mean that unapologetically authentic mass-market fiction written primarily for entertainment rather than classroom use.
I mean the kind of nightlife that Tanzanian writer Ben R. Mtobwa explored in Dar es Salaam by Night, the kind of crime thriller Mwangi Gicheru managed to cobble together in The Double Cross and John Kiriamiti wrote in My Life in Crime, My Life with a Criminal: Milly’s Story, The Sinister Trophy and My Life in Prison.
There were also works in the Macmillan Pacesetters series such as David Maillu’s The Equatorial Assignment, among many others. There are, of course, contemporary examples. We have recent crime novels such as The Dead Came Calling by Nducu wa Ngugi, a suspense-filled thriller published by East African Educational Publishers.
