Nairobi Litfest 2026

Music and movement

Friday 8 May 2026, 10am EAT –  TBA

Kicking the day off with a massive dance party for the kids led by MC Orpah with tunes from the festival DJ.

Writing Tips & Tricks: Lina Meruane

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 10am – 12pm EAT –  TBA

Award-winning Chilean writer and scholar, Lina Meruane shall engage with emerging writers in a two-hour roundtable discussion. She will be on hand to offer insights and respond to queries regarding excelling in long form and short form fiction writing gleaned from a successful career as an author and Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University's MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish.

Supported by the Open Society Foundations’ South-to-South Initiative

An Introduction to Autobiographical Writing: Richard Oduor Oduku

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 10am – 12pm EAT –  TBA

Children are storytelling creatures. They enter the world with an instinctive ability to acquire and use language to weave imagination, experience, and meaning into narrative. Over time, divergent thinking and creative capacity are diminished by formal education, social conditioning, and the demands of adulthood. In adults, creativity is not lost, just suppressed. What remains is the impulse to tell one’s own story. This masterclass is designed to unlock that impulse. You will learn to reclaim your voice, structure memory, and shape lived experience into a compelling narrative. Through practical narrative techniques and guided reflection, you will develop the discipline required to transform memory into story and lived experience into literature

Black Ekphrastic Mode: Dr. Nick Makoha

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 10am – 12pm EAT –  TBA

Dr. Nick Makoha offers a two-hour creative writing poetry session exploring how Black artists and writers engage visual art as a site of memory, resistance, and imaginative renewal.

Puppet show!: Michael Mutahi

Live performance

Friday 8 May 2026, 11am – 11.20am EAT –  TBA

Veteran puppeteer Michael Mutahi presents a show aimed at positive behaviour change communication. Expect big laughs and great lessons for the kids.

Mara the Marabou Stork: Muthoni Maina

Story time

Friday 8 May 2026, 11.20am – 11.30am EAT –  TBA

Kenyan writer, Muthoni Maina shares a moving tale of identity, friendship, and finding one’s place in the world — told through the eyes of an unlikely hero: Mara, a misunderstood marabou stork.

Checkmate: Tunde Onakoya

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 12pm – 1.30pm EAT –  TBA

Nigerian chess player and coach, Tunde Onakoya will offer a fun intermediary class on how to improve chess skills among young learners from Book Bunk’s Play Bunk programme. Tunde Onakoya holds the Guinness World Record for the longest marathon chess game.

Painting Party: Prisca Ojwang

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 12pm – 1.30pm EAT –  TBA

It's time for bright colours and wild imagination! Don't miss this guided group painting session encouraging free expression led by multi-passionate artist, Prisca Ojwang of Art Club Kenya.

Recognition of special contributions to Kaloleni culture

Prizegiving ceremony

Friday 8 May 2026, 2pm – 2.15pm EAT –  TBA

In the portrait that features Mayor Lugonzo at Kaloleni Library, the person next to him is Mark Wambugu Kaigwa, the father of celebrated thespian, Mumbi Kaigwa. He had deep ties to Kaloeni and was Nairobi's Deputy Mayor in the 1960s. The Kaigwa Family would like to honour his memory by recognizing an individual whose story reflects community service rooted in Eastlands.

Supported by Mumbi Kaigwa

Curatorial Playground: Dr. Portia Malatjie

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 2pm – 4pm –  TBA

Curatorial Playground expands on the notion of curatorship as research method and practice. It uses play to think and create together and to investigate the generative capacity to theorise, imagine and speculate in and with the public. The session invites us to employ childhood games as viable and productive models for knowledge production, and, as a result, explore the possibility of (childhood) laughter, humour and pleasure as radical curatorial strategies. By exploring alternative and multiple forms of exhibition making, we will discern what is possible for curatorial epistemologies and what disobedient curatorial practice opens up by way of meaning-making. The session is open to participants from different disciplines to foster a cross-disciplinary gathering where we can operate otherwise as a way to create futures that incorporate and prioritise our own ways of being and knowing. The session is open to those who do not have curatorial or visual cultural experience.

How to navigate the world of indie publishing: Ciku Kimeria

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 2pm – 4pm EAT –  TBA

Yaaay! You had an idea. Your manuscript is almost done (even if only in your head). You know it’s the next best thing after ugali and nyama choma... But now comes the real question: how do you get your first reader? And then the next... and then, of course, the awards. In this workshop, Ciku Kimeria will take you behind the scenes of indie publishing —what it actually takes to move from manuscript to a book that lives in the world. The session will cover the practical steps (editing, cover design, distribution, pricing), alongside the less talked-about work: building an audience, shaping your voice, and staying consistent. This is a working session for writers ready to publish, sell, and own their stories on their own terms.

Emerging Writers Self-Editing Support: Ellah Wakatama

Masterclass

Friday 8 May 2026, 2pm – 4pm EAT –  TBA

Ellah Wakatama OBE will conduct a bespoke two-hour workshop focusing on how to edit your own work; presenting writers with the tools they need to read their own work critically and to develop their craft. If you have a finished manuscript and feel ready to take your writing career to the next step, this is your chance to learn from an industry expert. This opportunity is open to writers of both fiction and non-fiction. (Poetry not included.)

Supported by Caine Prize

Alain Mabanckou and Yvonne Owuor in conversation with Garnette Oluoch-Olunya

Mythmakers

Saturday 9 May 2026, 10am EAT –  Main Stage

Experts in world-building and weaving magic from the everyday and gravitas from the absurd, Congolese author and academic, Alain Mabanckou and beloved Kenyan novelist, Yvonne Owuor offer up a conversation about the necessity of imagination and challenging received truths. This is an unmissable meeting of incredible creative minds with storied careers in the literary world.

Supported by the Open Society Foundations’ South-to-South Initiative

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Ziya Africa, Patriciah Joseph and Wanjira Wanjiru in conversation with Njahira Gitahi

The People Shall

Saturday 9 May 2026, 11am EAT –  Main Stage

In the spirit of Prof. Wangari Maathai's hummingbird analogy that viewed no act in the face of insurmountable odds as small or insignificant, advocate and Katiba Institute, Programmes Manager, Patriciah Joseph; civic impact collective founder, Ziya Africa and grassroots activist Wanjira Wanjiru gather for a necessary conversation about Kenya's current political dispensation. As the election season draws nearer, perhaps it is time to reflect on what more each of us can do.

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Shani Akilah, Lesley Nneka Arimah and Makena Onjerika in conversation with Ellah Wakatama

Beauty in brevity

Saturday 9 May 2026, 12pm EAT –  Main Stage

Don't miss this special spotlight on award-winning short fiction writers from across the globe whose dedication to the craft is sure to encourage the next generation of writers. Hear from Caine Prize winners Lesley Nneka Arimah and Makena Onjerika plus newcomer Shani Akilah in conversation with Chair of the Caine Prize, Ellah Wakatama, OBE.

Supported by the Open Society Foundations’ South-to-South Initiative

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David Maillu in conversation with Nyambura Mutanyi

Retrospective on post-independence Kenyan fiction

Saturday 9 May 2026, 1pm EAT –  Main Stage

David Maillu is a prolific Kenyan known for his enthralling novels dating from the 1970s. He has written over 60 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in Kikamba, English, and Kiswahili. Mailu's sensational novel, After 4:30 –which was first published in 1974– was recently reissued and spoke to the realities of the lives of urban housewives, office secretaries, and sex workers. Mailu's bold and provocative style both shocked and revolutionised literature from East Africa, firmly entrenching Maillu’s name among the older generation of literary giants. Mailu will be in conversation with Nyambura Mutanyi.

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Sisters of the East, with Sitawa Namwalie and Laura Sheïlla Inangoma

Playreading & Q&A

Saturday 9 May 2026, 2pm EAT –  Main Stage

Burundian theater performer and playwright Laura Sheïlla Inangoma's Sisters of the East ('Soeurs de l'Est') is a monologue by Hoda, a young Sudanese woman imprisoned in a Khartoum prison. Presented in Nairobi for the first time, the play will be recited by acclaimed Kenyan playwright, Sitawa Namwalie as she tells the story of two women locked in separate cells of the "Black Hole" for killing one of their cellmates. To escape unscathed, Hoda delves into the depths of their lives, their nightmares, and their dreams. This unmissable monologue explores themes of resistance, women's armed struggle, and the complexities of morality versus justice. The reading will be followed by a Q&A between the author and performer.

Supported by Prague-city of literature, Creative Africa festival, Czech Embassy and the National Institute for Culture.

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Mahmud El Sayed and Marta Peirano in conversation with Nanjira Sambuli

Is technology eating our souls?

Saturday 9 May 2026, 3pm EAT –  Main Stage

Science journalist Marta Peirano and sci-fi writer Mahmud El Sayed offer a temperature check on the rapidly-evolving capabilities of tech and AI. Peirano has written a book, El rival de Prometeo on automata and artificial intelligence and variously on AI and alternatives to collapse. Sayed is the 2023 Future Worlds prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of Colour winner whose debut novel, The Republic of Memory is set on a generation ship on the brink of revolution as its crew begin to ask why they should toil for a people, and an empire, none of them remember.

With the support of Accion Cultural Española, AC/E

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Arslan Attar, Ntone Edjabe and Olivia Kidula in conversation with James Murua

Art of the magazine

Saturday 9 May 2026, 4pm EAT –  Main Stage

In a world of rapidly reducing attention spans, the journal persists as a sumptuous, curated feast of the best new voices in literature and visual art. Publishing daring fiction and poetry; meditative longform pieces on culture and politics and existing as a playground for fresh, radical ideas. Hear from the editors of literary journals; Ntone Edjabe (Chimurenga), Olivia Kidula (Will This Be a Problem?) and Arslan Attar (The Desi Collective) regarding the legacies of their publications and the communities they serve.

Supported by the Open Society Foundations’ South-to-South Initiative

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Dr. Mordecai Ogada and Fiona Tande in conversation with Tom Mukhwana

Questioning conservation

Saturday 9 May 2026, 5pm EAT –  Main Stage

Amid musings on speculative cartography that welcomes repair and new configurations of abundance, we still exist in the reality of extractive capitalism and false allies working against the protection of natural heritage. Dr. Mordecai Ogada a carnivore ecologist, conservation policy scholar and author of The Big Conservation Lie and Fiona Tande, a distinguished Maasai wildlife filmmaker, conservationist and director of Pridelands Wildlife Film Festival. This panel investigates the complexities behind the management of natural resources and the rights of indigenous communities.

Register to watch online