Executive Board

  • NGŪGĪ WA THIONG’O

    CHAIRMAN (EX-OFFICIO)

    Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, was born in Kenya, in 1938 into a large peasant family. He was educated at Kamandura, Manguu and Kinyogori primary schools; Alliance High School, all in Kenya; Makerere University College (then a campus of London University), Kampala, Uganda; and the University of Leeds, Britain.

  • NDŪCŪ WA NGŪGĪ

    EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

    Ndūcū Wa Ngūgī is an award-winning writer with a B.A. in Black Studies from Oberlin College, an M.Ed., and an E.Ds. in Teacher Leadership from Mercer University in Georgia. He is the author of City Murders (EAEP, 2014) short-listed for the 2015 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, The Dead Came Calling (EAEP, 2018) and Benji’s Big Win (EAEP, 2020) which won the 2022 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.

  • NGINA KIARIE

    TREASURER AND CFO

    Ngina Kiarie has a master's degree in accounting and financial management. She has experience in grant, investment, and treasury management. Kiarie has also worked in the NGO financial sector for over twenty years.

  • ​SAMUEL KỌ́LÁWỌLÉ

    SECRETARY

    Dr. Samuel Kọ́láwọlé an assistant professor of English and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University, is the author of The Book of M (2011) and The Road to the Salt Sea (Amistad, 2024.) His short stories have appeared in AGNI Magazine, Harvard Review, and The Hopkins Review among others. Kọ́láwọlé is also a faculty member of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, MFA program.

Board Members

  • DAWLAT YASSIN, PHD

    Dr. Dawlat Yassin is an Instructor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake where she teaches advanced writing and graduate courses in humanities and literature. She has a PhD in Literature from the University of Houston and a B.A. from the Lebanese University, Lebanon. Dr. Yassin specializes in postcolonial literature, comparative literature, empire studies, and resistance literature.

  • JANE OBUCHI

    Jane Bosibori Marando Obuchi is the author of Endabasia Yechinkwana chi’Ekegusii (a dictionary of Ekegusii phrasal verbs), Chingero chi’Abagusii (Ekegusii Folk Songs), Marando the Farmer and Other Stories, a collection of Children’s short stories also translated into Ekegusii, Omoremi Marando n’Emegano Ende, amongst others. She has translated and published in Ekegusii language Ngūgī wa Thiong'o's The Upright Revolution, The River Between, and I Will Marry When I Want; Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart; and William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

  • JOE MWAI

    Joe Mwai is a self-made entrepreneur, computer support engineer, a software integrator, as well as motivational writer and speaker. He is the CEO of Riara Institute of Clean Energy Ltd, an affiliate of Riara University in Kenya, Managing Director of Kenya Light Project Ltd, Director of Bloomfields Care Ltd, UK, as well as Director of Solar Dimension Ltd, Kenya.

  • ​DR. KURIA MBURU​

    DR. KURIA P. MBURU is a lecturer of linguistics at Pioneer International University where he also heads the Education Department. He has taught in Universite’ De Djibouti, University of Nairobi, Murang’a University of Technology, and is an Adjunct Lecturer at Kenyatta University. Dr. Mburu has a PHD in Phonology from Kenyatta University, Kenya. His research interests are in the Phonological and Orthographical structures of African Indigenous Languages., especially GĨKŨYŨ.