Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (born 1968) is a Kenyan writer who is the author of novels, short stories and essays. She won the 2003

Caine Prize for African Writing The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language. The £10,000 prize was founded in the United Kingdom in 20 ...

for her story "Weight of Whispers".

Education and professional life

Born in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

, Kenya, Owuor studied English at

Kenyatta University Kenyatta University (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Nairobi County, Kenya. It acquired the status of university in 1985, being the third university after University of Nairobi (1970) and Moi University (1984). As of O ...

, before taking an MA in TV/Video development at

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

. She obtained an MPhil in Creative Writing from the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Owuor has worked as a screenwriter and from 2003 to 2005 was the executive director of the

Zanzibar International Film Festival The Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), also known as Festival of the Dhow Countries, is an annual film festival held in Zanzibar, Tanzania and one of the largest cultural events in East Africa. ZIFF is a non-governmental organization esta ...

. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications worldwide, including ''Kwani?'' and ''

McSweeney's McSweeney's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. Initially publishing the literary journal'' Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', the company has moved to n ...

'', and her story "The Knife Grinder’s Tale" was made into a short film of the same title, released in 2007. In 2010, along with

Binyavanga Wainaina Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina (18 January 1971 – 21 May 2019) was a Kenyan author, journalist and 2002 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. In April 2014, ''Time'' magazine included Wainaina in its annual ''Time'' 100 as one of the "Mo ...

, Owuor participated in the

Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and ''magnum opus'', ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958), occupies ...

Center's "Pilgrimages" project and travelled to

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...

, and intends to produce a book about her experiences. She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology ''

New Daughters of Africa ''Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present'' is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, ...

'', edited by

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisherJazzmine Breary"Let' ...

Writings

''Dust''

Owuor's 2014 novel ''Dust'' portrays the violent history of Kenya in the second half of the 20th century. Reviewing ''Dust'' in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

Taiye Selasi Taiye Selasi (born 2 November 1979) is a British-American writer and photographer. Of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, she describes herself as a "local" of Accra, Berlin, New York and Rome. Early life and education Taiye Selasi was born in Lond ...

wrote: "In this dazzling novel you will find the entirety of human experience — tearshed, bloodshed, lust, love — in staggering proportions." Ron Charles of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' wrote: "Owuor demonstrates extraordinary talent and range in these pages. Her style is alternately impressionistic and harsh, incantatory and propulsive. One moment, she keeps us trapped within the bloodied walls of a torture cell; in the next, her poetic voice soars over sun-baked plains. She can clear the gloom with passages of Dickensian comedy or tender romance, but most of her novel takes places in 'haunted silences.' 'Dust' moves between the lamentation of a single family and the corruption of national politics, swirling around one young man’s death to create a vortex of grief that draws in generations of deceit and Kenya’s tumultuous modern history."

''The Dragonfly Sea''

In 2019, her second novel, '' The Dragonfly Sea'' was published. ''The Dragonfly Sea'' is set on

Pate Island Pate (Paté) Island () is located in the Indian Ocean close to the northern coast of Kenya, to which it belongs. It is the largest island in the Lamu Archipelago, which lie between the towns of Lamu and Kiunga in the former Coast Province. T ...

, off the coast of Kenya, and about a girl named Ayaana living with her mother, Munira. When a sailor named Muhidin enters their lives, Ayaana finds something she has never had before: a father. But as Ayaana grows into adulthood, forces of nature and history begin to reshape her life and the island itself–from a taciturn visitor with a murky past to a sanctuary-seeking religious extremist, from dragonflies to a tsunami, from black-clad kidnappers to cultural emissaries from China. Ayaana ends up embarking on a dramatic ship's journey to the Far East, where she discovers friends and enemies; seduced by the charming but unreliable scion of a powerful Turkish business family; reclaims her devotion to the sea; and comes to find her own tenuous place amid a landscape of beauty and violence and surprising joy.

Awards and recognition

Owuor won the 2003

for her story "Weight of Whispers", which considers an aristocratic

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

n refugee in Kenya. The story was originally published in ''

Kwani? ''Kwani?'' ( Sheng for ''so what?'') is a leading African literary magazine based in Kenya that has been called "undoubtedly the most influential journal to have emerged from sub-Saharan Africa". The magazine grew out of a series of conversatio ...

'', the Kenyan literary magazine set up by

after he won the Caine Prize the previous year. In 2004, she won the Woman of the year (Arts, Heritage category) for her contributions to the arts in Kenya. In September 2015, her critically acclaimed book ''Dust'' was shortlisted for the

Folio Prize The Rathbones Folio Prize, previously known as the Folio Prize and The Literature Prize, is a literary award that was sponsored by the London-based publisher The Folio Society for its first two years, 2014–2015. Starting in 2017 the sponsor is ...

, and won Kenya's pre-eminent literary prize, the

Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature The Text Book Centre Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature is a biennial literary award given by the Kenya Publishers' Association. It has been called "the most prestigious literary award in the country". The first award ceremony took place in 197 ...

Selected works

Novels

*''Weight of Whispers'' (Kwani Trust, 2003) *''Dust'' (Knopf, Granta, 2014) *''Der Ort, an dem die Reise endet'' (tr. Simone Jakob) (Dumont, 2016) *''La Maison au bout des voyages'' (tr. Françoise Pertat ) (Actes Sud, 2017) *''The Dragonfly Sea'' (Knopf, 2019) *''Das Meer der Libellen'' (Dumont, 2020)

Short stories (in anthologies)

*"Trial of Terremoto" (Caine Prize Anthology), 2004 *"The State of Tides" (commissioned by

Essex County Council Essex County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Essex in England. It has 75 councillors, elected from 70 divisions, and is currently controlled by the Conservative Party. The council meets at County Hall ...

, UK), 2004 *"Dressing the Dirge" (''Little Black Book'' anthology), 2005 *"The Knife Grinders' Tale", 2005 *"These Fragments" (All the good things around us; ''

'' anthology), 2016, 2019 *"The Fire in Ten" (Hearth: A Global Conversation on Identity, Community, and Place), 2016

Essays, articles, keynotes, literary reportage

*"Kin la Belle: In the Clear Light of Song and Silence", in ''African Cities Reader II: Mobilities and Fixtures'' *"Imagined Waters", '' Chimurenga Chronic'', 2015 *"In Search of Poem-Maps of the Swahili Seas: Three Sea Poems by Haji Gora Haji", ''Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies'', 4:3–4, 164–178, DOI: 10.1080/23277408.2018.1478632 *"O-Swahili – language and liminality" (2015), ''

Matatu In Kenya matatu or matatus (known as mathree in Sheng) are privately owned minibuses used as share taxis. Often decorated, many ''matatu'' feature portraits of famous people or slogans and sayings. Likewise, the music they play is also aimed ...

'' 46(1):141–152 ·DOI: 10.1163/9789004298071_009 *"Reading Our ruins; A Rough Sketch" (2018), ''Matatu'' 50(1): 13–4, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/18757421-05001012 *"Distilling Existence" (2019), ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

'' 146: The Politics of Feeling *"The Spiritual Voice of The Forest" (2021), National Geographic, 240(6):98–105

References

External links

*Mildred K. Barya
"An interview with Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor"
''Pambazuka News'', Issue 438, 18 June 2009. *Yvonne Owuor
"Memories of Landscape"
("Caine Prize winning author Yvonne Owuor speaks during TEDx Nairobi on September 18th, 2010"), TEDxNairobi. * Daniel Musiitwa
"An Interview with the Caine Prize Winning Author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor"
Africa Book Club, 1 March 2014. * Michael Halmshaw interviews Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
"Running to the River"
''Guernica'', 3 March 2014.
"Yvonne Owuor from TEDxEuston on This Day Live"
interview with Juliette Foster, ''Arise News'', 5 December 2014.
"Biography at the international literature festival berlin"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo 21st-century Kenyan women writers 21st-century Kenyan writers 1968 births Alumni of the University of Reading Caine Prize winners Kenyan writers Kenyatta University alumni Living people