Nairobi-based independent publisher Jahazi Press has announced the acquisition of the East African publication rights for Mahmood Mamdani’s latest work, Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State.
The book, originally published by Harvard University Press’s Belknap Press in October 2025, challenges the simplistic narrative that Uganda’s troubles originated solely with the rule of Idi Amin. Drawing on five decades of archival research, courtroom testimony, and firsthand interviews, Mamdani argues that the nation’s conflicts stem from a persistent colonial legacy: the deliberate transformation of culture into tribe, tribe into territory, and territory into a political weapon—a “slow poison” refined by every post-independence leader.
Mahmood Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology at Columbia University. A renowned Indian-Ugandan scholar, he is celebrated for his work on colonialism, postcolonial Africa, and political violence, in influential books such as Citizen and Subject, Neither Settler nor Native, and Good Muslim, Bad Muslim. His analysis is deeply informed by his personal experience as a stateless Ugandan. He is also the father of the New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Slow Poison was first introduced to Kenyan audiences at a well-attended event curated by Kevin Mwachiro at the Swahilipot Hub in Mombasa on January 9, 2026, featuring a panel with Professor Ahmed Muhiddin.
Nairobi readers will have an opportunity to engage with the author at an event hosted by Cheche Books on Friday, January 23, with Mshai Mwangola and Parsalelo Kantai as discussants.
There will also be an event at the Jain Bhavan auditorium, Loresho, on Saturday, January 24.
Leave a Reply