In a world where children’s imaginations are often outsourced to Hollywood or Hogwarts, Kari Mutu is working to ignite a homegrown spark. A Kenyan writer of children’s and young adult fiction, Kari is part of a small but passionate wave of African authors determined to reclaim storytelling for the continent’s youngest readers. 

Her debut novel, The Fire Makers of Azali, is a tale of talking animals and magical realism set firmly in Kenya — a deliberate departure from the snow-dusted landscapes and ginger beer-soaked pages of British imports that defined her childhood bookshelves. The novel was inspired by her long-time love of the fantasy genre, African folklore and the rich natural heritage of Kenya.

Mutu’s journey into fiction didn’t begin with formal literary training. Born and raised in Nairobi, she pursued a degree in the sciences, then spent several years working in the hospitality industry before transitioning into marketing. But storytelling was always part of her personal landscape, nurtured by a father who read widely and a home where books — mostly British and American — were treasured. “My happy place was books,” she recalls. “My dad was always reading, and he passed that on to us. Every couple of weeks, we’d go to the bookshop and get a new book.”

But it wasn’t until the global phenomenon of Harry Potter swept through the literary world that Kari began to wonder: why not write an African equivalent?

Rediscovering African Magic

“The Harry Potter books made me think: what if we had something like this but set in Africa, with Kenyan children, and our own magical traditions?” Kari says. That question led her to write The Fire Makers of Azali, a children’s fantasy novel that blends Kikuyu folklore, human-animal relationships, and African settings with universal themes of courage and belonging.

Kari’s inspiration also drew from the oral stories her mother used to tell — tales filled with ogres, village life and mystical animals. These folk memories, deeply rooted in Kenyan tradition, became the seedbed for her literary world. Unlike much of the available literature during her childhood, the protagonists of Kari’s books are African children, and the action takes place on African soil.

However, writing the book was one thing; getting it published was another. The Kenyan publishing landscape for children’s fiction remains painfully sparse. “Most publishers focus on adult nonfiction and school textbooks,” she notes. “Story Moja was the only one I could find that specialised in children’s fiction.”

With guidance from Story Moja, Kari embarked on a rigorous editing process — her first real exposure to the craft of writing for children. She learned the importance of story structure, character development, age-appropriate vocabulary, and narrative pacing. “It was painful at times,” she laughs. “But I learned so much. I basically taught myself how to write a novel.”

A Landscape Taking Shape

Despite her own breakthrough, Kari is the first to acknowledge that the children’s literature scene in Kenya is underdeveloped. “There just isn’t enough content for Kenyan children by Kenyan writers,” she explains. “The options are limited, especially when it comes to fiction that excites and engages.”

Much of the challenge lies in the entrenched focus on education-as-examination. The legacy of the 8-4-4 system, introduced under former president Daniel arap Moi, prioritised rote memorisation over creativity. “It stifled free thinking,” Kari says. “It created a generation that sees books only as exam tools. Once they’re done with school, they don’t want to touch another book.”

The consequences for creative reading and writing have been severe. Without early exposure to literature for pleasure, many young Kenyans have grown up with no sense that stories can be a source of identity, escape or empowerment. Worse still, the lack of African-centric children’s and young adult stories perpetuates the colonial narrative that “real” literature comes from elsewhere.

“When I was growing up, we didn’t question why all the books were about children in winter coats and boarding schools,” Kari says. “That was just what books were.” It wasn’t until she began reading African authors like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor as an adult that she realised how absent her own cultural reality had been in the books she read as a child.

Reading Culture

Yet Kari is hopeful. She sees a new openness among younger generations of Kenyans, especially those in private schools where events like book fairs, reading competitions and author visits are more common. But the gap between public and private education is stark.

“I’ve done readings in public schools where my book, written for 10-to-12-year-olds, is being read by high schoolers,” she says. “The interest is there, but the literacy levels aren’t being nurtured.”

Initiatives like Story Moja’s “Start a Library” campaign, which stocks school libraries with donated books, are making a difference. Still, much more is needed to establish reading as a leisure activity, not just a school requirement. “Reading has to be fun,” Kari stresses. “But you can’t expect a love of reading to develop if there’s nothing to read.”

She’s quick to dispel the myth, often expressed from a place of privilege, that Kenya lacks a reading culture. “There’s a huge storytelling tradition in Kenya,” she asserts. “It’s just that it hasn’t always taken the form of print media, which was brought by colonial systems that weren’t accessible to everyone.” So, let’s not confuse literacy with a lack of narrative intelligence.

Nurturing Writers as Well as Readers

Kari believes that rebuilding Kenya’s children’s literature sector requires parallel investments in both readers and writers. “We need to support writers who want to create this content,” she says. “There are people who feel like outliers because they write for children. But if we brought them together and supported them, we could produce truly innovative work.”

For aspiring authors, Kari offers two pieces of advice: write the story you want to read and aim for excellence. “Don’t write just to get on the school syllabus,” she warns. “Write your best work. Make it so good it can sit on a shelf next to anything from the UK or the US.”

She recalls how her manuscript was once rejected for Kenya’s national curriculum because it used vocabulary deemed too advanced. “It felt like they were asking me to dumb it down,” she says. “But I wasn’t writing just for the Kenyan market. I wanted my book to be read anywhere.”

To sustain writing as a practice, she encourages young writers to develop other skills, too. “Very few people in Kenya can survive solely from creative writing,” she says candidly. “Have another job or skill that pays the bills so that your writing remains a joy, not a burden.”

True to the advice she gives, Kari is a tourism marketing and communications professional by day, and an author by night. As an independent features writer, she covers travel, arts and culture in East Africa. 

Writing groups, deadlines, and accountability partners can also help. “I need accountability,” she says. “A writing group gives you motivation, deadlines, feedback. That’s how I wrote the first book.”

Looking Ahead

Though The Fire Makers of Azali was envisioned as the first in a five-part series, Kari has yet to publish the sequels. Life, work and limited distribution have slowed her down, but the stories remain vivid in her head. “I’ve outlined them, I just need to write them,” she says. Her readers, some now grown up, regularly ask when the next instalment will appear.

She also has ideas for historical fiction rooted in Kenya’s pre-colonial and colonial transitions — possibly incorporating elements of magical realism. “We’ve lost much of our spiritual heritage,” she says. “I’d love to tell those stories through fiction, especially from a child’s perspective.”

Despite the challenges, Kari’s commitment to children’s literature remains unshaken. For her, it’s not just about creating stories; it’s about building a legacy of imagination. “Reading is how you raise thinkers,” she says. “And stories are how you teach a child that their life, their landscape, their imagination matters.”

In a publishing ecosystem still finding its voice, Kari Mutu is one of the fire makers. Her work lights the path forward, inviting the next generation of Kenyan readers and storytellers to step into the glow.

The Firemakers of Azali is available at Storymoja and Text Book Centre.

Virginia Clay is a Nairobi-based children’s author and editor. virginiaclay.co.uk