Fictionalising the good old East African Railways days
Patrick Ochieng’s debut YA novel, Playing a Dangerous Game, was published by Norton Young Readers in August 2021. It recounts life in Nairobi’s Railways estate through the eyes of a precocious teenager trying to navigate friendships, family, crushes and class issues.
Vividly narrated from the first-person point of view, Playing a Dangerous Game is a glorious debut that powerfully records everyday Kenyan life peppered with humour and history.
Ochieng’, a writer and a lawyer, has been shortlisted for the Golden Baobab writing prize and longlisted for The Syncity NG 2018 Anniversary Anthology prize and The Short Story is Dead, Long Live the Short Story prize. His work has been published in Munyori Literary magazine, Kikwetu Journal and Brittle Paper. He lives in Kisumu with his wife and two sons.
He spoke to Saturday Nation.
What inspired this novel and where is it set?
It was inspired by a short story I wrote for Kikwetu Literary Journal in 2015. After I finished writing it, I realized that it was merely a layer of a much bigger tale. A story of my generation. The story of the history of my country.
Playing a Dangerous Game is set in a railway estate in Nairobi in the 1970’s. Like most towns in Kenya, Nairobi was spawned by the railway. A considerable number of my generation are ‘children of the railway’ because their parents worked for the railways and they lived in railway estates. The East African Railways & Harbours as it was called then, was a very big employer. It is life in those estates in the 1970’s that inspired my novel.
What was your experience being edited and published by a publisher based in New York?
It was a roller coaster ride. The editors, my agents and I got into lengthy discussions as we tried to streamline language, themes and age-appropriate slang. It was Norton’s initial foray into the African writing scene and so, they needed to get a lot of things right. Luckily, my agents, Accord literary, and in particular the legendary, Sarah Odedina — celebrated for having overseen the publication of the popular Harry Potter series — had already done a wonderful job of helping with editing my manuscript.
Still, the issue of the USA market raised disparities in word usage. A word like, ‘butchery’ that in Kenya, where the book is set, connoted a shop that retailed meat products, meant a ‘slaughterhouse’ in the American context. While ‘dispensary’ means a clinic of sorts where you seek treatment for minor ailments here, it is the equivalent of chemists that dispense medication in the US. All that aside, what seemed stark to all that were working on the novel, was the universality of the experiences of children.
Which other YA novels would you advise Kenyan parents to buy for their teenagers?
While Kenyan parents are probably more familiar with texts by our traditional greats like Ogot, Kulet and Ogola, there are extremely well written and entertaining YA novels from outside our borders. Two such novels that immediately come to mind are, The Deep Blue Between, a historical fiction novel by Ayesha Harruna Attah and Crossing the Stream a recent release by Elizabeth Irene Baitie which deals with environmental issues. For those who enjoy the Hunger Games kind of adventure novels, there is the mythical and magical, Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi.
What are you currently reading?
I exercise very little fidelity when it comes to reading, so I’m always reading three of four different books at a given time. Currently I am reading two YA novels: War Horse by Michael Morpurgo and Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi. I’m also reading The First Woman, an adult novel by my favourite East African writer, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi.
What are the most tweetable lines from your book?
I love the sardonic quip by the protagonist that goes: “No one can beat mama in the corporal punishment business. She canes us out of love; at least that is what she says. Even when I’m writhing on her floor, and my backside is on fire, she says she is the one in pain. I can do without that kind of love.”
What in your opinion, is the most unethical practice in the publishing world?
The racial disparity in books advances. It is what spawned the popular hashtag #PublishingPaidMe, which drew attention to the disparity in the amounts paid to writers of colour as book advances in comparison to their white counterparts.
When did you know you wanted to write?
In 1973, when a good-natured lady working with the Nation Newspapers in their old offices — then situated opposite the Fire Station in Nairobi — sponsored me for a charity walk, then known as the Freedom from Hunger Walk. In the process, she signed and gave me a book. I later realised that the lady was Barbara Kimenye, best-selling author of the Moses series. I think it was about that time that I started getting into trouble for writing stories in the inner pages of my father’s books — and there were plenty because my father surrounded us with all manner of books.
My more conscious efforts at writing were manifest in the late 80’s after college when the articles I wrote started getting published in one of the national newspapers. As for creative writing, I’ve been at it for the last 15 years.
What are your thoughts on the Kenyan book industry?
Like most other industries in Kenya, the book industry, which is really the publishers, exhibits a collective reluctance to take writers under its wings and grow them. It is only after a writer has gained recognition, most probably in the wealthier North, that they take notice. The industry’s other flaw is the over-reliance on school texts.
Which books will you never lend out?
Arundhati Roy’s, “The God of Small Things,” and my old copy of Alan Paton’s, “Cry the Beloved Country.” I value it not just because it belonged to my father, but also because I can never get enough of that opening chapter, which I believe is the greatest opening of any novel:
“There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa…”