Moraa Gitaa

Moraa Gitaa is a Kenyan novelist. She is the author of the novels Hila and Shark Attack among other works. She is a Social Protection and Peace & Conflict Studies practitioner. Gitaa was one of the Kenya Chapter winners of the 2014 Burt Award for African Literature[1] and nominated for the 2010 Penguin Prize for African Writing[2] and also won First Prize in the National Book Development Council of Kenya (NBDCK) Adult Fiction literary award in 2008 (Kenya's National Book Week Literary Award.)[3] She is a member of PEN International, the World Association of Writers.

Moraa Gitaa
NationalityKenyan
Alma materAfrica Nazarene University, Nairobi - BA in Peace and Conflict Studies

Career

Moraa Gitaa has worked for more than 15 years with various organizations among them the British Council, Aga Khan Foundation and PEN Kenya Centre across a spectrum of Sustainable Livelihoods, Arts for Social Change, Social Justice/Protection, Governance and Peace & Conflict

Gitaa's first full-length novel, Crucible for Silver and Furnace for Gold, centres on two characters: Lavina, an African woman living with HIV, and Giorgio, an Italian man whom Lavina meets on vacation.[4] Gitaa's second novel is Shifting Sands.[5] Gitaa's recent work is a crime fiction novella, Hila, YA Burt Award-winning title The Shark Attack!, and children's book, The Con Artiste.

Crucible for Silver and Furnace for Gold has been described by reviewers as a re-reading and re-writing of gender in times of HIV.[6] Her work on Shifting Sands received a positive review in the Nairobi Star from Khainga O' Okwemba, who said: "Here is a writer with the patience, perseverance and discipline needed to create vivid characters. Here is a contemporary Kenyan writer capable of bedazzling and cajoling the reader with a skillfully written and scintillating narrative.... Shifting Sands is a must read for literature students."[7] Gitaa's stories focus on vulnerable and typically marginalized members of contemporary African society, such as those afflicted with HIV.[8]

Gitaa's short stories have been featured in various anthologies including Transition Magazine, [9] Pen OutWrite, [10] Hekaya Initiative[11], Author-Me Author Africa Anthology (2011), Author-Me Author Africa Anthology (2008), and G21 The World's Magazine – Africa Fresh! New Voices from the First Continent (2007).

She has published a number of short stories among them "Searching Me", "Katsanga Kenye", "The Devil is in the Detail", "To Serenity via Perdition", "Diplomatic Impunity", "Obscure Oddities", "From Shifting Sands to Deeper Dimensions". She has just completed a couple of children’s books and is currently writing a childhood memoir on challenges of Dyscalculia/Dyslexia and depression.

Gitaa was the apexart NYC fellow, from 28 February to 29 March 2017.[12]

References
  1. "Announcement of Nominees for the 2014 BURT Award For African Literature Competition". Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  2. "Shortlists for the Inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing". Penguin SA. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  3. "National Book Development Council of Kenya Literary Award (2003?-2010?)". African Book Awards Database. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  4. Gitaa, Moraa (2008). Crucible for silver and furnace for gold (1st ed.). [Oakville, Ont.]: Nsemia Publishers. p. 276. ISBN 0981036228.
  5. Gitaa, Moraa (2012). Shifting Sands. Nsemia Inc. ISBN 978-1-926906-04-1.
  6. "A Critique of Friendship across Race and Tribe in two Kenyan Novels". Retrieved 14 August 2013.
  7. "Moraa Gitaa Is a Must-Read Author". The Star. Nairobi. 7 February 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
  8. Evan, Mwangi (5 March 2006). "Kenya: Books: Kenyan Writers Open Debate On New Corruption Frontiers". Daily Nation. Retrieved 14 August 2013 – via All Africa.
  9. "Transtition Magazine, Issue 121". Archived from the original on 2017-11-04. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  10. "Pen Outwrite, Obscure Oddities".
  11. "Hekaya Initiative, Jihadi Brides".
  12. "apexart :: International Fellow :: Moraa Gitaa". apexart.org. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
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