EA golden age of popular fiction lives on, beautifully reimagined

Every generation has its passions. And every generation in East Africa has had its own literary watershed. In the old days, it was song, dance and oral storytelling. Later, with the spread of Western education, the fireside tales gave way to bedtime reading. These bedtime stories linked children to global narratives their families could access. That was the case in the 1970s and 1980s for the few households that had discovered the written word. Some came by some very good titles in school.

The 1980s through the early 1990s was the golden literary age for those of my age and above. We read good stories, gripping, memorable, and often life-changing. For the young, there were The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Files, among other series.

For older youth, the shelves teemed with James Hadley Chase, Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins and Jeffrey Archer, whose tales of intrigue and ambition thrilled us to no end. Closer home, we had Barbara Kimenye’s Moses series and, much later, Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye’s Black Hand Gang series – the last part of which yours truly edited.

There was also Sweet Valley High, a hugely popular young adult book series created by Francine Pascal and first published in 1983 by Bantam Books. The series follows the lives of identical twin sisters, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in the fictional California town of Sweet Valley. Interestingly, I know one or two Kenyan teen fiction writers – born in the ’80s - who seem to have been inspired by this series, which means its spirit lives on in East Africa. These titles opened our imaginations to adventure, friendship and mystery.

Another great series back then was the Macmillan Pacesetters – slim, vibrant paperbacks that breathed real African lives and realities into the printed page. Titles like The Smugglers and The Minister’s Daughter (Heinemann, African Writers Series) were devoured eagerly in school dormitories and matatus alike. And everyone by now has confessed that they read David Maillu’s little books. This, however, happened under the desk because society expected young people to remain the Sunday-school version of themselves forever – which, unfortunately, was not the main thematic preoccupation of some of these books.

Era of imagination

These titles defined an era of imagination before the digital age, when storytelling reigned supreme in shaping our dreams and moral compass.

A little later, popular fiction expanded to include Charles Mangua, David Maillu, John Kiriamiti, and Muli wa Kyendo – he of The Surface Beneath fame. From Tanzania came Ben R Mtobwa, whose Dar es Salaam by Night rivalled Mangua’s Son of Woman and Son of Woman in Mombasa. For me, Mwangi Gicheru (pseudonym for Nicholas Muraguri) was the standout – my Kenyan Sidney Sheldon. I first read Across the Bridge as a young boy. Beneath its romantic surface, it reveals the tragedy of love across class lines. In this East African popular fiction classic, Chuma, a humble young man from a poor background, falls for Caroline, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy, influential man.

Their love blossoms but soon collides with Kenya’s rigid social hierarchies. Despite the pressure, the lovers dream of a life together “across the bridge”, a metaphor for crossing the social and economic gulf that separates the rich from the poor.

But this piece is not a nostalgic regurgitation of the classics of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. My argument is that, golden as those days were, the age of popular fiction has not ended – it has evolved. The problem is that my generation, especially, assumes that every other generation must read and enjoy what we did. Yet literature, like culture, is alive and dynamic. Each generation has the right to enjoy a literary menu of its own curation and choosing.

Today, many of the popular titles of yore – such as John Kiriamiti’s crime novels – can  more likely make a comeback not as paperbacks on bookshop shelves, but as screen adaptations and full-length films. True, there will be lovers of paperbacks, like me, who will enjoy a book in print and watch its film version, but the bulk of readers will be drawn to emerging multimedia versions.

Most plays that dominated theatre in the 1990s may no longer crowd the shelves, yet they thrive on screen. Works by Francis Imbuga, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Kithaka wa Mberia, and Barbara Kimenye have been translated, adapted, or evolved into new forms – in the same way that fireside tales gave way to the popular classics of the 1980s.

Perhaps it is time East African publishers stopped worrying about risking millions printing new fiction when people are glued to their phone screens – and when curriculum book printing, and the wait for payment, weigh heavily on their textbook-laden shoulders.

Maybe we should experiment with publishing e-books first, later printing small runs of, say, 3,000 copies, and only if and when demand warrants it.

All the more reason publishers should curate new bestsellers for screens. Popular ones can be marketed not to bookshops or schools through roving sales reps, but sold first as e-books, then as film and translation rights.

This not only saves printing costs but also takes books where readers already are — on their screens. By working with literary agents or consultants who prepare manuscripts to pre-press stage for a royalty cut instead of upfront payment, publishers can minimise costs while testing their mettle against short-form social media fiction. zMost importantly, this would identify the region’s next crop of great writers and thus create wealth and employment.

So, if you think we lost a golden age of reading, consider that today’s generation is having the best time sampling global storytelling through well-scripted movies and TV series.

Many of the productions we binge-watch on Netflix were once scripts — some, published books. We can produce many more. For every generation has its pop fiction; only the platforms keep evolving.