About this Event
Join Wanjiru Koinange live in London as she sits down with LOLWE founder, Troy Onyango in a conversation about her seminal novel, The Havoc of Choice.
About The Havoc of Choice
A story about family, politics and journeying through a fractured country in a delicate time, The Havoc of Choice explores the long reaching effects of colonisation and corruption within the context of a singular household and the disparate experiences of class and clan they encapsulate.
2007, Kenya. Long held captive by her father's shadow of corruption, Kavata has spent her life suffocated by political machinations. When her husband decides to run in the next election, these shadows threaten to consume her home. Unable to bear this darkness, Kavata plots to escape.
As her family falls apart, so too does her country. In the wake of Kenya's post-election turmoil, Kavata and her family must find their way back to each other across a landscape of wide-spread confusion, desperation, and heartrending loss.
One of the first pieces of long fiction from Kenya to explore its 2007 post-election violence (PEV) in such detail, The Havoc of Choice is a delicate and deeply personal attempt to understand the root of this spontaneous yet organised conflict and to figure out what healing looks like for the people of Kenya.
About Wanjiru Koinange
Wanjiru Koinange is a writer, restorer of libraries and entrepreneur from Nairobi, Kenya.
Her debut novel, The Havoc of Choice was published in London and Nairobi in 2019 and 2020 respectively and was a national bestseller in 2020 – 2022. It has also been translated to and published in Arabic in October 2022 and was re-issued in the UK in 2023. The novel, which chronicles events surrounding Kenya’s 2007 general election, has been described as “one of the best accounts of the new Africa in years.”
Her writing has been published in several journals and magazines across the continent including Chimurenga, SlipNet and Commonwealth Writers where she served as a cultural correspondent for East and Southern Africa in 2015. During this stint, she published a about the McMillan Memorial Library – Kenya’s second oldest library. The article was the major inspiration for the formation of Book Bunk which Wanjiru co-founded with Angela Wachuka in 2017.
About Troy Onyango
Troy Onyango is a writer and editor from Kisumu based in the UK. His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Doek!, Wasafiri, Isele Magazine, Johannesburg Review of Books, AFREADA, Nairobi Noir, Dgëku Magazine, and Transition among others. The winner of the inaugural Nyanza Literary Festival Prize and first runner-up in the Black Letter Media Competition, he has also been shortlisted for the Caine Prize, the Short Story Day Africa Prize, the Brittle Paper Awards, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His debut collection of short stories FOR WHAT ARE BUTTERFLIES WITHOUT THEIR WINGS was published in 2022.
An alumnus of the Caine Prize Workshop, Miles Morland Workshop, Jalada Workshop, Goethe Workshop and the Kwani?-SLS Workshop, he has also been a writer-in-residence at the Ebedi Writers Residency in Nigeria. He graduated from the University of Nairobi with a Bachelor of Laws degree and completed his MA in Creative Writing with distinction from the University of East Anglia, where he was a recipient of the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship. He is currently studying towards an MA in African Studies at SOAS University of London. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of .
About Jacaranda Books
Jacaranda Books is an award-winning, diverse-owned independent publisher and bookseller who ‘has held the torch for diversity in publishing’ since 2014, for writers in the UK, Africa and the wider diaspora. We describe ourselves as a place where books are bigger than books because of our commitment not just to telling stories, but developing, showcasing and protecting our community’s writers, cultures, histories, pasts and futures.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
50 Victoria Embankment, 50 Victoria Embankment, London, United Kingdom
GBP 4.00 to GBP 14.00
