
The other week I talked about our friends from Jalada and their innovative way they are introducing their new Languages anthology. They are doing thing this by doing a series of interviews they call “conversations” that they feel will be the best to sell it. The first of the conversations was between Ivorian Renee Edwige Dro and Congolese Richard Ali Mutu and it was very good.
The latest conversation is between Kenyan writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor and Zimbabwe’s Novuyo Rosa Tshuma. Owuor has been doing amazingly well with her novel Dust which has been garlanded the world over for its amazingness. Its probably the best book to come out of Kenya that has made it into the world literature ether in the last fifteen years. Its that good. Tshuma on the other hand has quite a few nominations to her name as well as an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and deputy editor of Jalada.

This new conversation explores how Owuor perceives language, how she grew up in the many Kenyan languages as well as which one she is most comfortable navigating in; English. The interviewer is clearly an Owuor groupie in how she approaches the interview. But then its Yvonne, who in their right mind shouldn’t be?
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