Things seemed to be looking up for Stanley Gazemba when his debut novel The Stone Hills of Maragoli won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 2003.

The win was quite an achievement for Gazemba, till then a gardener.

It certainly changed his life; today five years down the road, he owns a publishing firm, Imbada Publishers.

The trouble is, this is nothing to write home about.

Imbada has only ever published one children’s book, Grandmother’s Winning Smile, authored by Gazemba himself.

“My experience with Kenyan publishers has taught me that they do not care much about a general readership,” he says. “I have five manuscripts gathering dust at different publishers. This is the reason why I decided to publish myself,” he adds.

And Gazemba is still a gardener. “Writing for newspapers pays better compared with being an author in Kenya,” he says. He complements his income by contributing articles to newspapers and magazines. His award-winning book has been out of stock for some time now.

Gazemba also does his own marketing.

The writer says self-publishing realises little profit since all the money goes towards the production costs.

With only one title to his name, he cannot compete against established publishers who are better in recouping their costs given the numerous titles in their stable.

“I could only afford to print a few copies of my award winning novel due to financial constraints,” he explain.

Writers like Gazemba cite publishers as the enemy. They are accused of sitting on manuscripts for lengthy periods, while keeping writers in the dark.

But the scenario has not always been this bleak. Kenya’s most successful novelists, its a literary gift to the world, is Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a contemporary of Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.

He is best known for his novels, The River Between, Petals of Blood and A Grain of Wheat, among many others.

His latest book, The Wizard of the Crow, continues to receive rave reviews internationally.

Today, Ngugi is a director of the International Centre for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine.

Unlike Nigeria, which has over the years continued to produce writers of repute, Kenya is yet to find a writer to follow in Ngugi’s foosteps.

The sorry state of Kenyan writing indeed sharply contrasts with that of Nigeria.

Following in Achebe and Soyinka’s footsteps, Nigeria, has continued to dazzle the literary world with an array of exciting new writers.

One recent revelation is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose book Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize in 2006.

Adichie arrived on the international scene when, in 2002, she was nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing.

That year, the prize was won by Kenya’s Binyavanga Wainaina, for his novella Discovering Home.

In Binyavanga, Kenyans were excited that Ngugi’s larger-than-life profile, would at last cast a shadow.

Things looked even better when Yvonne Owuor won the same prize, the following year, with her story Weight of Whispers.

Sadly for Kenyans though, the two award winners’ writing careers appear to have stagnated. Neither has written a book since.

It is ironic that in spite of the obscurity of Kenyan writers, the country is home to one of the most robust publishing industries in Africa — albeit one that is dedicated wholly to school textbooks publishing.

Critics of Kenyan publishing claim the reason industry does not take leisure readership seriously is because their school texts have a ready made market.

Kiarie Kamau, general manager of East African Educational Publishers, a leading publishing house in Kenya, however sees little choice in the matter.

“Our critics should understand that we invest money to get returns,” he says. And it happens that in Kenya, those returns can only be realised by concentrating almost exclusively on school textbooks.” Furthermore, he decries the dearth of what he calls “groundbreaking general readership works.”

Onduko bw’ Atebe, an author, disagrees. He attributes the state of affairs to the fact that the schools textbook market is assured, and thus the publishers are too lazy to put in the hard work of marketing other genres.

Atebe, whose book The Verdict of Death won the Inaugural Wahome Mutahi Prize for Literature, insists that there are enough writers with stories to tell out there.

“With good and aggressive marketing, we can give the Nigerians a run for their money,” he explains.

As far as marketing of general readership books goes, Kiarie grudgingly admits that publishers need to style up. “To some extent, publishers have not done much to market general readership books,” he says.

Kingwa Kamencu, an up-and-coming author, refuses to give up on young writers.

“We might not have made an impact on the international scene, but all signs are that we are getting there,” she says. She gives the example of Kwani Trust and the numerous literary activities they undertake, as a sign that young writers are finally “waking up.”

Kwani Trust was founded by Binyavanga Wainaina after he won the Caine Prize.

Kiarie however admits that it is publishers who stand to gain if more of Kenyans took up reading for leisure.

The way forward in resolving the issue, according to him, is to “catch them young,” arguing that effort is needed to made to ensure that a reading culture is inculcated in children from a tender age. “That way, they will grow appreciating the written word and books in general,” he says.

David Waweru, chief executive of WordAlive Publishers dismisses the theory of a poor reading culture. “We do not publish school textbooks yet our books do well in the market and we make good profits,” he says.

Waweru gives the classic example of the European shoe marketer who was sent to explore new markets in Africa, but came back with the news that there was no market, as all Africans walked bare feet!

“That marketer lost his job when a smatter colleague noted that Africa was where new markets lay, as the people without shoes are potential customers,” says Waweru.