Ken N. Kamoche

Search for a word or phrase in this book …

Biographical note:  Ken N. Kamoche was born in Kenya and currently teaches management in Hong Kong. He holds degrees from Nairobi and Oxford (Rhodes Scholar). He worked in Uganda as it emerged from the Idi Amin chaos, Somali weeks before it descended into civil war, and Poland while it was still truly communist. He has published four books on management and has completed a novel. ‘A Fragile Hope’ is his first collection of short stories. He is a columnist for Kenyan newspapers and on www.G21.net.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844713202
ISBN:  9781844713202
Author:  Ken N. Kamoche
Title:  A Fragile Hope
Series:  Salt Modern Fiction
Product class:  BC
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  FNB
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  01-May-07
Extent:  132pp
Height:  203 mm
Width:  127 mm
Thickness:  8 mm
Weight:  198 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 8.99
Price:  USD 14.95
Rights:  World

Main description:  The short stories in ‘A Fragile Hope’ are set in different locales, from Nairobi and small villages and slums in Kenya to London and Copenhagen, from the bustling humid cities Hong Kong and Bangkok to Shanghai. They are testimony to the author’s keen eye on his many travels around the world. They tell the poignant stories of love, betrayal, trials and tribulations, dreams and aspirations, corruption and greed, self-discovery and redemption. In ‘Black fishnet stockings’, a rich Nairobi couple get entangled in a liaison with their poor workers. In ‘The Warrior’s Last Job’, a hangman in a small Kenyan village battles the demons from his dark past as he seeks to maintain the façade of a venerable strongman. In ‘The Smell of Fresh Grass’, a Hong Kong girl who is lost in the confusing world of Copenhagen learns to reconcile with her estranged father following a chance encounter with a roving African musician. In ‘London Slaves’, a newly-minted Kenyan tycoon in the UK comes face to face with a form of discrimination that makes no sense to him. In the final story ‘And then the End’, an elderly Chinese driver is forced to confront the reality of his boss’s conviction for corruption. Many of these stories have previously been published in journals/magazines such as Ambit, Wasafiri, Kunapipi, New York Stories and Author-me. For the first time, readers can appreciate this kaleidoscopic picture of the breadth and depth of the human condition in a truly multi-cultural collection.

Table of contents:
The Smell of Fresh Grass
Private Lessons
The Dream Went Out
London Slaves
A Glimpse of Life
The Warrior’s Last Job
Random Check
Black Fishnet Stockings
For a Favourite Niece
The Lion’s Tears
And then the End

View excerpt as PDF:

Click here to view a sample ( KB)

Excerpt from book:  

The Dream went Out

‘This is going to be our big break, my brother.’ Laughter. ‘This is our chance! We’ll make it, I tell you. This is the dream that came true!’

Making it was all the rage. Nobody wanted to remain a nobody. They wanted to make it, to move on. But who would dream the dream of genuine freedom, freedom from the daily debilitating struggle of their lives? Karani yearned for that dream. He wanted to break free, and fly like a bird, to a nest well and truly feathered with crisp shilling notes.

Making it big and filling in the void in lives that started with so much promise but usually ended up hanging precariously on the edge of pecuniary solipsism. The great dream that too often took the place of good old-fashioned work. But work did not seem to mean anything any more. It became the empty school room promise that delivered little in the job market.

Just look at Charlie (Chah Lee to friends and non-friends alike). They said. See how he just recently started from nothing and now as a somebody runs a fleet of matatu minibuses, and a brand new C-class Merc!

Pretty soon Nairobi won’t be big enough for Chah Lee. The dream gets bigger than the dreamer. Yet, little was said about the money that changed hands to lend the dream a semblance of reality. The money that, like a furious April thunderstorm, washed away the myth that it couldn’t be done. A few plum plots of land were ‘allocated’ to deserving citizens for services that were never clearly defined. But no one dared sully Chah Lee’s reputation. Or that of some officer in the Lands Office.

So, citizen Chah Lee, he of the imprecise services to an ill-defined community, placed the plots on the market even before the ink had dried on the quickly prepared transfer documents. In no time at all, Chah Lee was the embodiment of the new society of successful entrepreneurs. It was all so effortless. So much easier than they predicted in economics textbooks that made university such a bore for Karani and Olu.

Demand and supply curves. What irrelevant nonsense! Karani had quickly discovered that in modern Kenya, all you needed was a friend or two in the right places. Supply and demand followed. You placed your demand. He supplied. And you supplied a little something in return. And the cycle went on. Just like a dream.

But Karani didn’t even know about the new deal in town. The deal Chah Lee was spinning like a spider’s web around the city. The world of tablets, pellets and syringes. For Olu, this was the dream that came true. Karani could remember exactly how the decision was made. It was Olu’s idea. Much of what he did to make a living was often Olu’s idea. Ever since high school. Olu’s Nigerian parents worked in Nairobi, or so the story went. Never really clear what they did. Consular connections. Business. Consultancy. Trade. Identities bandied about to lend credence to a story that shifted with the prevailing listener.

Who cared? Olu justified himself in sports. He provided much-needed muscle for the rugby scrum. Handy with the hockey stick, especially when in defence of the school’s injured pride. Lashing out at hapless rivals from some upstart school. Defining moments indeed, when Olu shone through as more Kenyan than the Kenyan-born, his accent notwithstanding.

Years later; college in; college out, and Olu styled himself the Broker. A Mister Fix-it of sorts. Equipped with a legitimating Bachelor of Arts. You wanted it done, you talked to Olu. The broker with the winning grin and expansive persuasive gestures as he said, Just leave it with me.

For the right price, Olu could fix anything, or so the myth went. But nothing excessively illegal. His style was to make money. Nice and legit; or at least, almost legitimate. That’s why he called it legit. Almost there. Between a dream and the reality it sought to enact. Olu the dream giver talked serious money. That was always the plan, anyway. Never mind that serious money and Olu had never crossed paths. But not for want of trying.

‘This is going to be different, my brother; take my word for it. It’s our big break.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Piece of cake, my brother. I’ve got contacts all over Lagos. We’ll have the stuff out there and our dues coming in here faster than you can swallow a pellet.’

‘Be realistic, Olu!’

‘Trust me on this, man. Leave it with me. Am I the broker or what?’

Karani was a nice guy to pull things off with. He could buy into most plans with a minimum of fuss. He found it easier to place his trust in those who made it all seem so easy. If only making it was as smooth as the talk that preceded it. Making it sound easy was so much easier than actually making it.

But even when they didn’t deliver, Karani was forgiving enough to allow them another chance to sell him yet another dream. He bought into one dream after another, like the gullible pedestrian forever under the spell of the street con-artist. Dreams drew him closer to the world he feared he was doomed to experience second-hand. A world of riches and power. A world as ethereal as it was intoxicating.

Tossing the coin was the easy part. The mere flip of a coin. Heads you go; tails I go. In through the head; out by the tail-end. A long journey for the stuffed condoms, through the unfortunate body of he who desperately sought the transition from nothing to something. Nobody to somebody. Heads and tails.

Unpublished endorsement :  Ken Kamoche is a talented author as well as an ambitious one. His characters live and breathe with real passion. I've waited for this book a long time.

David Gerrold

Unpublished endorsement :  Ken Kamoche displays an impressive mastery of the short story form. The stories, set in places as diverse as China and Africa and Britain, all show a consistency in their sympathetic grasp of human nature. The characters are so true, their dilemmas so so touching that one is drawn effortlessly into their world. Here is all that we require from a short story collection: depth, diversity, and brilliance of expression.

Helon Habila, Caine Prize and Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Winner

Review quote:  With its varied cast, diverse themes, and fitting title, A FRAGILE HOPE extends beyond the Eurocentric East-West pathway.

Wes Stevens
Asian Review of Books

Review quote:   Ken has devised an intricate interplay between family, dreams, and a kaleidoscope of culture, and he truly makes it work… This is a powerful short story collection.

Bruce Cook
Reserve Books