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piqer for: Global finds
Ciku Kimeria is a Kenyan author "Of goats and poisoned oranges" - (https://www.amazon.com/goats-poisoned-oranges-Ciku-Kimeria-ebook/dp/B00HBBWPI6), development consultant, adventurer and travel blogger (www.thekenyanexplorer.com). She writes both fiction and non-fiction focusing on African stories that need telling. She has worked on diverse pieces for various international and local publications including Quartz, Ozy, The East African etc. She has travelled to 45 countries – 16 of them in Africa. 153 countries to go and 63 territories!
"Of goats and poisoned oranges" has been extremely well received in Kenya and beyond. It tells the story of a Kenyan middle aged power couple and their complicated marriage. The novel explores issues of greed, revenge, betrayal and murder. It runs from the 1960s to 2013. It has been described as “Wicked, funny, poignant, wacky, human, a big ball of fun and danger”, “A unique and captivating book”, “Fun and intriguing”, “Impossible to put down once you start reading.”
She recently moved to Dakar, Senegal from Kenya to work on her second novel. She also works at as the Africa Communication Manager at a leading global strategy consulting firm.
She holds a B.S. in Management Science from MIT with minors in Urban Planning and International development studies.
Exploring Narratives Of LGBTQI Women In Africa
Africa Writes is an annual literature festival organized by The Royal African Society in London. One of the panel sessions from this year was celebrating the stories of LGBTQI women in Africa and has very fascinating insights.
Exploring narratives by queer womxn across Africa and the diaspora, and creating spaces for womxn to tell their stories. This event marks the publication Sista! which explores the challenges, joys, heart-aches, rewards and experiences of same-gender-loving womxn; She Called Me Woman, a stirring and intimate collection of 25 unique narratives from Nigeria; gal-dem magazine and creative collective based in the UK; and La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono, described as ‘a teenage orphan’s quest of self-discovery’, and the first novel by an Equatorial Guinean womxn to be translated into English.
The women on the panel talk about the challenges of being black, queer, African and a woman in today's world. While those on the panel who identify as LGBTQI have grown up in the west, they are all of African origin. As such even though they might have more freedom to live their authentic lives abroad (obviously still having to negotiate the family tensions of being queer in an African home anywhere), they are also extremely empathetic to the stories of queer women on the continent who have lots to fear including violence. With many African countries having laws against homosexuality and lesbianism, LGBTQI women on the continent struggle just to exist let alone be recognized as persons worthy of the same human rights as everyone else. They are an easy scapegoat for politicians to use to galvanize mostly conservative and religious populations against.
In the words of one panelist, though, the life of such women is not only one of pain. She says that to focus only on the violence that LGBTQI women on the continent face is to ignore the fact that their stories are also those of love, joy, laughter, passion, community.
