Catch up With Kenyan Writer, Yvonne Owuor, in Cologne

Kenyan writer and Caine Prize winner, Yvonne Owuor is back in Germany and you can catch up with her in Cologne this week.

Yvonne will be here to promote her 2014 novel,  “Dust“. Dust is set in Kenya and goes through the upheavals Kenya has faced since colonialism, to Mau Mau, to the Referundum in 2005 and subsequently to the post election violence in 2008.

Below an excerpt from Dust:

Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation.

To meet up with Yvonne at her book reading, here are the details.

Date: Tuesday, 4th July

Time: 7:30 PM – 9 PM

Venue: Literaturhaus Köln, Großer Griechenmarkt 39

Entry fee: 10,-/8,-€/ (Members: 6,-€) Order tickets online

Yvonne is best known for her novel “Weight of Whispers”, which won the Caine Prize in 2013. Yvonne was named “Woman of the Year” by EVE Magazine in Kenya in 2004. She studied English at the Jomo Kenyatta University before proceeding to the University of Reading for her MA in TV/Video development.

Below is an interview with “Das Bücherregal” during Yvonne’s previous visit to Germany.