Disco Matanga is a catchy name, but more catchy are the romantic stories in the book.
The author knows how to weave a web of words that get you drooling, creating vivid mental pictures as you flip the pages.
Mr Nderitu has put in work, on creating the 10 African love stories.
A Kenyan by birth, it is fascinating how the man describes any part of the world like the back of his hand.
He starts off with a Luo-Luhya relationship issue where the husband dies and the wife, a Kikuyu, has to travel back home (to Luo-Nyanza) to bury him.
The descriptive nature of the funeral and the rites and the confusion and learning by the widow; makes one see the amount of research that had gone into the book.
That is not all, in the book, Nderitu’s magic pen would visit other places in Kenya, even other countries and brings you fun, joy and romance.
The author also has a funny touch to some issue, which will make you question his sanity.
For example, the relationship between a Indian lady and a Kikuyu common chap.
How do you give a lady from the upper caste mutura on a first date? Ha ha ha.
Perhaps this reflects the author’s own conviction about friendship; that it should be pure and unpretentious.
Apart from the Nairobi dating scene where we get to see the infidels and the straight risk-takers. The book also touches and goes deep into the campus relationship.
For the hopeless romantics.
Being a playwright and a critic, Nderitu seems to also try to evoke change.
Is the escape of the Kikuyu lady from the funeral of her husband an effort to spearhead change?
Do Kenya parents speak about boy-girl relationships with their parents?
Literature must be an agent of change in society.
This book is best enjoyed when relaxed and some chapters can make a good set book in our secondary schools.
The book is not only about romance but also drama in relationships. Some stories leave you wanting more.
Take the example, the lady’s involvement with an intelligence officer.
Asmara Princess is about loss, pain, heartbreak, opportunity and then triumph. Best twist.
Get this book now from Nuria Store.
About the author
Alexander Nderitu is a Kenyan writer, poet, playwright and critic. He is the Deputy Secretary-General of PEN Kenya Centre and a Regional Managing Editor for the global news portal TheTheatreTimes.com. His 2001 e-novel, When the Whirlwind Passes, was Africa’s first purely digital novel. He has since published four more books: The Moon is Made of Green Cheese (poetry); Kiss, Commander, Promise (short stories); Africa on my Mind (YA novel) and The Talking of Trees (stage play). In 2017, Business Daily newspaper named him one of Kenya’s ‘Top 40 Under 40 Men’. In 2020, he was a finalist for the Collins Elesiro Literature Prize.
