Dr Billy Kahora is a writer from Kenya and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. He has written a non-fiction novella titled The True Story Of David Munyakei (2010) and a short story collection, The Cape Cod Bicycle War (2019). His short fiction and creative non-fiction has appeared in Chimurenga, McSweeney’s, Granta Online, Internazionale and Vanity Fair and Kwani. He has just completed a novel titled Babilon Falling. He recently co-edited an issue of Wasafiri around Human Rights Cultures.
His academic research is on the Kenyan political novel; creative writing pedagogies in sub-Saharan Africa; African Literature realisms; and creative non-fiction. He is currently working on a new research project entitled ‘The Genealogy of the Kenyan Novel’ tracing the vital role played by non-fiction political writing in the early development of the Kenyan political novel, He will be looking at the Heinneman Educational Books Archive and in particular the African Writers Series held by the University of Reading’s Special Collections.