BOOK SA – News

Kenyan poet Bantu Mwaura – respected and loved across the continent – was found dead outside his home in Nairobi last week. Just forty years old, he most recently appeared in South Africa at Poetry Africa 2008 in Durban.

The cause of Mwaura’s death has not been officially established, but the preponderance of the speculation is suicide. The response from Kenyan and African writers has been overwhelming, with performer Shailja Patel leading the charge:

The first time I met Bantu Mwaura, a few years ago, he showed me, unprompted, his cellphone display: A photo of his wife, Susan, and two children. When he told me his daughters’ names: Makeba (after Miriam Makeba) and Me Katilili (Kenyan woman who led her Giriama people in armed struggle against the British in 1913), I teased him: ‘No pressure there, huh? No burdens of history on two gorgeous children?’

He laughed, his face alight with love and pride in his family.

The burdens of history caught up with Bantu Mwaura four days ago. We still do not have a definitive, trustworthy account of how he met his death. Kenyan press reports that his body was found on Monday morning, on a path of the Nairobi housing estate where he lived. An autopsy was carried out on Tuesday, where a pathologist from the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (a Kenyan human rights organisation) was present alongside the government pathologist. The certified cause of death was ‘chemical poisoning’. I am told that ‘investigations continue’ into how the poison was administered – and by whom.

• Complete article on Pambazuka.org
• More from Shailja Patel

Locally, the Director of the Centre for Creative Arts, Peter Rorvik, had this to say:

“We love the mystery and mischeviousness in the poetry of Bantu Mwaura. But the mystery surrounding the circumstances of his death creates suspicion of another sort of mischief. We do not know the answers to this, but we do know that yet another strident voice is taken, a colourful figure is gone from the cultural landscape of Africa. Unafraid to speak out, Bantu’s blend of humorous word-play and blunt directness in particular targeted injustice, political corruption, and corporate hegemony of the West. We came to know him during Poetry Africa programme at the World Social Forum in Nairobi in January 2007, and again at the Poetry Africa festival in Durban in 2008. The Centre for Creative Arts expresses condolences to his family and broad community of loved ones. May the flame of his work continue to light creative voices.”

• Bantu Mwaura biography at the CCA

Mwaura’s death was the subject of a lengthy op-ed this Sunday in the Daily Nation:

IN KENYA, WHEN AN ARTIST dies, we don’t just mourn the death of an individual, but the demise of an entire art form.
This is partly because there are so few truly talented and innovative artists left in the country, and the departure of just one leaves a huge void in the artistic sphere.

It is also because each death in these turbulent times is seen as part of a larger and increasingly tragic Kenyan narrative, where the best and the brightest seem to be dying in the prime of their lives. Often, this is in the most bizarre or unusual of circumstances, leaving a question mark as to why the death had to occur at this critical point in our history when we are in most need of creativity, innovation, intellectual rigour and artistic expression.

When one such artist died last week, it was not just his friends and family that grieved, but the entire artistic community. Bantu Mwaura, an award-winning performance artist, playwright, poet, storyteller and human rights activist, was found dead near his home in Nairobi’s Langata area. He was only 40.

• Complete article here

Here’s more reaction from the web:

“Bantu was a human rights activist and university lecturer. He received his Ph.D. in performance studies from New York University. He was a poet and had published in English, Gikuyu, and Kiswahili, and was also a thespian, director, and storyteller.”
– Gukira

“I got to know Bantu through the monthly Kwani open Mic nights in its early days where he never failed to read one or two of his poetry. Most of his poetic work was in criticism of the Kenyan Political scene through sarcasm.”
– KenyanPoet @ Blogspot

“Other renown Kenyan writers and poets who have worked with Bantu on numerous occasions such as Rasna Warah, Muthoni Garland, Shailja Patel, Al Kags, Binyavanga Wainanina, Phillo Ikonya, Neema Mawiyo and Simiyu Barasa were equally dumbfounded by the news as scanty details of his death tickled in.”
– GlobalVoicesOnline

And here’s disturbing video footage of the collection of Mwaura’s body (not for sensitive viewers):

• Video: Bantu Mwaura’s body found in Nairobi

Photo courtesy Centre for Creative Arts