James Murua’s Literary Podcast
If you ask James Murua about where his interest in creating an African literary podcast stemmed from, he will give you an incredibly honest response.
“Podcasting was not something I had ever considered. I was more concerned with ensuring that there was someone who was bringing the voices of African writers to a space where they never get heard,” James says.
This compelling belief led him to create the James Murua’s Literary Podcast.
Though before he created the podcast, James was already sharing these stories through his blog. Founded in 2013, he created this online space to share literary news about African writers. His experience as a journalist and an editor enriched his blog writing and made his website a platform that gave often marginalized writers the centrestage.
When podcasts started gaining popularity in Kenya, James was on the lookout for a podcast that told audio-versions of stories he blogged about. In 2018, he came across a tutorial on how to create a podcast and finally decided to stop waiting around and create one himself. He recorded the first episode on Anchor and shared the link with his networks before self-doubt could seep in.
About a year after the first episode aired, the James Murua’s Literary Podcast was nominated by the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) for an award under the Podcast Of The Year category. This was a testament to the sheer effort that had gone into curating these stories. 20 audio and 9 video episodes have featured so far on the podcast, and each of them continues to celebrate the work of African writers. Some of the literary giants interviewed so far include Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Makena Maganjo, Maaza Mengiste, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Peter Kimani, Joe Khamisi, and Kinyanjui Kombani. Of all these amazing stories, the pilot episode titled The Journey Begins remains James’ favourite because it propelled him into a new avenue of storytelling. As is the case here, we often remember the first step in a journey that ended up being necessary for our growth.
There’s always something to look forward to in the African literary scene. This podcast offers its audience two ways to stay up to date, which do you prefer between audio and video stories?
