• Source: Moraa Gitaa

Moraa Gitaa is a Kenyan novelist, born in Mombasa. She is also a Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution researcher, cultural
advocate and arts curator. She is the author of the YA novels Let's Talk About This, The Kigango Oracle, Hila and The Shark Attack.




Career


Gitaa's debut full-length adult fiction novel, Crucible for Silver and Furnace for Gold, centres on two characters: Lavina, a Kenyan African woman living with HIV, and Giorgio, an Italian man whom Lavina meets on vacation in Malindi on Kenya's coast. Gitaa's sophomore novel is Shifting Sands.
Crucible for Silver and Furnace for Gold has been critiqued by scholars as a re-reading and re-writing of gender in times of HIV. Her work on Shifting Sands received a positive review in the Nairobi Star from Khainga O' Okwemba, who said: "Here is a writer with the patience, perseverance and discipline needed to create vivid characters. Here is a contemporary Kenyan writer capable of bedazzling and cajoling the reader with a skillfully written and scintillating narrative.... Shifting Sands is a must read for literature students." Gitaa's stories focus on the vulnerable, underserved, marginal and marginalized
members of contemporary African society.
Gitaa's non-fiction and short stories have been featured in Harvard University's Transition Magazine, PEN International's PEN OutWrite,, IFLAC'S Peace & Anti-Terror Anthology, Spotlight Publisher's Waiting and Other Stories, Creatives
Garage Anthology, several Author Me Anthologies, several G21 The World's Magazine Anthologies including Africa Fresh! New Voices from the First Continent, The African Magazine, and Hekaya Initiative
In 2014, James Murua included Gitaa in a list of 39 top African novelists under the age of 40 writing in English.




Works


Let's Talk About This. Worlds Unknown Publishers, Kenya, 2020
The Kigango Oracle. Worlds Unknown Publishers, Kenya, 2020
Hila. Storymoja Publishers, Kenya, 2015
The Shark Attack. Moran Publishers, Kenya, 2014
The Con Artist. Kenya Literature Bureau, Kenya, 2014
Shifting Sands. Nsemia Publishers, Kenya, 2012
Crucible for Silver and Furnace for Gold. Nsemia Publishers, Kenya, 2008




Anthologies featured


African Land Policy Center (ALPC) Anthology Finding Ground and Other Stories on land governance in Africa, 2022.
Hekaya Arts Initiative Issue 01 / Libros Agency: Anthology - Jihadi Bride and Other Stories, Kenya, 2018
Transition Magazine Issue 121: Theme - Childhood - Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, 2016
Creatives Garage: Femmolution Volume 01, Kenya, 2016
Waiting and Other Stories: Spotlight Publishers, Kenya, 2016
PEN OutWrite - Obscure Oddities: LGBTQI Issue Published by PEN International, 2015
G2's Anthology - Africa Fresh! New Voices from the First Continent, 2010




Awards


2024 Kenya Publishers Association's 25 Notable Authors and Books from the past 25 years with The Shark Attack
2024 Nuria Bookstore's Top 100 Authors and Books with Shifting Sands
2022-2023 IAS-CEU Writer-in-Residence / Fellow: Institute for Advanced Study - Central European University
2022 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature (JKPL) - Shortlisted with "Let's Talk About This"
2021 James Currey Prize for African Literature (Longlist)
2021 NOMMO Awards (Nominated/Longlist)
2017 apexart Fellow
2014 Burt Award
2010 Penguin Prize for African Writing (Shortlist)
2008 National Book Development Council of Kenya - Book Week Literary Awards (First Prize Winner Adult Fiction Category)




References






External links


Author's website
Moraa Gitaa's LinkedIn Profile

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Moraa Gitaa
• List of Kenyans
• List of authors by name: G
• List of Kenyan writers
• List of women writers (A–L)
• List of Kenyan women writers