The Heart is A Bastard, a new anthology edited by Zukiswa Wanner and Elias Mutani, was launched in Nairobi, Kenya on Saturday, May 27, 2023.
In 2020, the University of East Anglia appointed Tsitsi Dangarembga as the International Chair of Creative Writing. As part of the activities for the role, the team would deliver a program of literary events, classes, and workshops across the African continent and in the UK from 2021 to 2022.
One of these workshops was an East African affair with writers from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda writing in English and Kiswahili run by Tsitsi Dangarembga, Jean McNeil, Zukiswa Wanner, and Elias Mutani in July 2022.
From this workshop, stories were whittled down and the best were put in a new Paivapo Publishers anthology The Heart Is A Bastard edited in English by Zukiswa Wanner. The Kiswahili version of this book edited by Elias Mutani is called Moyo ni Mwanaharamu. Those whose work featured are Fatma Shafii, Maureen Waithaka, Julius M Chiwaya, Joanita Kente Tushabe, Noella Moshi, Nyasili Atetwe, Ruth Nyadzua Mwangome, Sia Chami, Precious Colette Kemigisha, Gladwell Pemba, Jibril Adam, Misigo Daniel Mwanzu, and Charlie Muhumuza.
The anthology launched at a ceremony at the Goethe-Institut in Nairobi on Saturday. The afternoon event emceed by Zukiswa Wanner included speeches by the University of East Anglia’s Jean McNeil and Goethe-Institut’s Head of Information and Library Department Lilian Momanyi representing the partner organisations.

In a panel discussing the book and how it came to be were contributors Gladwell Pemba, Jibril Adam, Nyasili Atetwe, and Joanita Kente Tushabe, moderated by Elias Mutani.



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