Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor launched The Dragonfly Sea at Prestige Books in Nairobi on Friday, March 1, 2019. It was the first launch of the book in the world.
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is arguably the most important writer to come out of Kenya in this generation. She emerged in 2003 when her short story Weight of Whispers won the Caine Prize for African Writing. The novelist would follow on this win with a very well-received debut novel focusing on the Northern part of Kenya called Dust. It would win the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 2015 and make the shortlists for both the Folio Prize 2015 and FT/Oppenheimer Fund Emerging Voices.
At an oeuvre in her honour in 2016, she would tease Kenyan audiences with a sophomore novel called The Dragonfly Sea that would focus on the coastal part of East Africa. It would emerge last year that the book official publication day would be March 12, 2019.
There was a large crowd that filled the Prestige Books in Nairobi’s Central Business District for the launch of this new book from one of Kenya’s finest writers. The event emceed by Oyunga Pala would include a reading by Aleya Kassam as well as remarks from Lamu born academic Prof Omar Bakari and former legislator Abubakar Zein.
Congratulations on your new novel Yvonne. You truly are the best of us.
Here are images from the event courtesy of Prestige Books.






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