The Soma Nami African Book Fair 2025 was hosted at Maktaba Kuu in Nairobi, Kenya, from August 7 – 10, 2025. Here are some highlights from the four-day festival.
The African Book Fair was hosted by Soma Nami Books at the Macmillan Library in Nairobi’s central business district in 2023 and 2024. It has given Nairobi readers access to books from 54 African countries alongside panels, readings, and activities for adults, children, and teenagers.
In June, Soma Nami announced that the fair would return with the Kenya National Library Services as its new partner. Apart from the book sales, they promised a diverse and exciting program of book chats, panel discussions, poetry performances, workshops, and literary collaborations.
The Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony was held at the Colombian Embassy, which was one of the festival partners. The morning hosted by ambassador Pedro León Cortés Ruiz featured speeches by festival founders and partners before there was a panel titled “Naming the Silence (GBV)” moderated by Kui Kabala with Munira Hussein and Njeri Migwi as discussants.
The Book Fair
There were over 10,000 books from 54 African countries on offer at Maktaba Kuu in Upper Hill. The Maktaba Kuu (Big Library) has gone to the centre of the literary activity with many book events in the last few years. Soma Nami jumped on the bandwagon, hosting their event there for the first time.
Those who attended were treated to books in sections representing the different regions of the continent, from North, South, East, West, Central, and Diaspora, as well as little sections like the Liberation Corner, Fiction For All Seasons, Creatives, Kiswahili Kitukuzwe, and a section dedicated to the late great Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. It was great to see people with shopping baskets picking their favourites and restocking their libraries. Some of the people complained about the prices of the books being too high.
Also on the floor was Purple’s Chilli, who asked us to sample their chili that blew our heads off!
Headliner Book Chat
The festival’s headliner was Iris Mwanza, and there was a full house at the venue to see this daughter of the continent in conversation with Soma Nami manager Virginia Njoroge. Mwanza spoke about her debut novel, The Lions Den, which Time Magazine listed as one of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. The two went over the motivations for the book, the mechanics of producing the title with such a unique offering, and loads more. Including the questions from the audience, this was one of the best conversations one could have hoped for in a book with such a sensitive topic at its core.
Other Book events
The other book events on offer were chats for The Intasimi Series by Shiko Nguru, Let Us Conspire and Other Stories, which had Buke Abduda, Daniella Malinda, Munira Hussein as contributors, and Even If The Stars Should Fall by Natasha Omokhodion (who flew in from Zambia). Decolonise, Humxnise, which was edited by Kathryn Toure, was launched with the editor in the event alongside Kailash Iyer and Celeste Wamiru with moderation from Sitawa Namwalie.
Panels
The fair had panels like “Defending the Right to Read and Write” with Natasha Omokhodion and Dr. Njuki Githetwa moderated by Pen International’s Nduko O’Matigere. Another was “African Stories, Global Shelves” moderated by Wendy Njoroge with Anwuli Ojogwu and Stanley Kenani as discussants. Then there was “The New Book Club Movement” moderated by Muthoni Muiruri with Kui Kabala and Joan Nzoya as panellists. Nepurko Keiwua moderated the “Migration, Identity & Belonging” panel with Iris Mwanza and Dennis Mugaa as discussants. There was also a panel conducted in Kiswahili, moderated by Carolyne Momanyi, which featured Dr Ann Munuku, Wakio Mzenge, and Prof Kithaka Wamberia titled, “Whose Language?”
This blogger especially enjoyed the “Libraries at the Heart of African Storytelling” panel moderated by Atwech Odinga, with Geraldine Opala and Rose Owuoche sharing their experiences. The two spoke about the triumphs and challenges in the library community, and what they were doing to deal with them, led by excellent moderation. It was instructive to hear Geraldine Opala, who was the Maktaba Kuu librarian, speaking about the initiatives they put into place to serve the community in spite of the drawbacks from both the macro and micro environments. While still nodding our heads at the great work done, a Soma Nami manager challenged Ms Opala, who was her host, that their institution needed to do much better. Then she asked her not to say who mentioned it because they needed to return to the library for future editions.
Performances
There were performances to round out the fair, such as the poetry party, which closed out Saturday activities. The penultimate event on the last day was the Ngugi Tribute “Decolonizing the Mind” hosted by Kinuthia SK and Kairu Karega.
Here are more images from the fair, courtesy of the organisers and by us.
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