By Ogova Ondego
Published July 21, 2021
As you enter the room you see books hanging on the walls as if they were paintings or photographs.
“Welcome home,” a beaming man says, a broad smile crossing his face as he extends his hand and ushers you into the cavernous maisonette that he has designed and built.
“A copy of every book that I have ever written is stored in this museum,” he says as if to answer your non-vocalised question.
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Is this a studio, an office, a classroom or a book museum? you ask.
“It is all of these and many more things rolled into one,” says the writer, musician, painter, philosopher, theologian, palmist and politician.
“I stand as the most published author in Africa,” the man, an enigma that is wrapped up in mystery, says.“My ability to write, edit and design enabled me to launch and operate a successful publishing career.”
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Welcome to the world of David Gian Maillu whose hundreds of copies of books published by Comb Books, Maillu Publishing House, African Comb Books, Macmillan Education, East African Educational Publishers, Jomo Kenyatta Foundation, Kenya Literature Bureau, Evans and Brothers, Long Horn, and MPB Enterprises are available in this literature museum in Koola Village on the border of the Ukambani counties of Machakos and Makueni on the eastern side of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
If you only associate Maillu with titles such as After 4:30, My Dear Bottle or even Unfit for Human Consumption, this book museum introduces you to titles such as Mbengo and the Princess, My High school Love, Kisa cha Peremende, Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Cost of Being beautiful, The Government’s Daughter, Beautiful Wendo, The Ayah, Untouchable, The Kommon man, Our Kind of Polygamy, Kadosa, Broken Drum, The Black Adam and Eve, African Indigenous Political Philosophy, My Dear Mariana, Ki’ kyambonie, The Nairobian and Forgive and Forget.
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Maillu says he is particularly proud of the 1120-page Broken Drum, seven-volume Kadosa, African Indigenous Political Philosophy and KA: Holy Book of Neter that he describes as ‘My major works’.
A visit to this book museum accords you the rare opportunity to leaf through all these books that could be described as a national treasure.
Also on display in the various rooms of the house are a sample of tools that were at one time or another used in or related to book production: archaic type writers; manual cameras for still photography; primitive computer monitors, screens and key boards; and fixed telephone sets.
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