On 28 June, something extraordinary happened. At Sarakasi Dome in Nairobi, the long-held dream of a 35-year-old Kenyan man, now 86, came full circle. David G. Maillu’s After 4.30 was relaunched, not just with a striking new cover, but as a bold and electrifying stage production.

First published in 1974, After 4.30 was outlawed, whispered about, hidden under desks and read beneath blankets, often without a cover to mask its title. Now, it returned to centre stage, diagnosing the human condition and societal hypocrisy with such brutal precision that it leaves you shaken. And what’s perhaps most jarring? The realisation that nearly nothing has changed in postcolonial Kenya. If anything, the condition of inequality, injustice, and indignity in Kenya and arguably across many African nations has only worsened. The dream of Uhuru has calcified into survival under systems rigged against the people. One is forced to confront a bitter truth: that the coloniser may have been a lesser devil than the post-independence African politician (I deliberately choose not to call them leaders).

Before Chimamanda Adichie declared, “We should all be feminists,” Maillu had already laid down the blueprint. Decades earlier, he dared to name the systems, to expose the quiet violence, and to hold up a mirror to a newly independent society still haunted by the ghosts of colonisation. He didn’t wait for permission to question patriarchy. He confronted it, bare-knuckled and unflinching. The miracle? He is still alive. Still writing, watching and challenging us to have real conversations. That’s why 28 June wasn’t just a date on the calendar. It was the ignition point of a movement. A literary resurrection.

Frozen in time: the human condition in stasis

Thank God for the technological advancements, but the human condition is still stuck in a time warp. The world has advanced, while the people’s software systems remain outdated.  Many women live, and some, forcibly so, within the After 4.30 universe: where sex and a big booty are valued more than merit in the workplace and on the streets, where femicide is as common as dust, where if you are bold as a woman they will do everything to make you small and bummer, where men with brittle egos continue to hold the reins of power. Perhaps this is what Maillu meant when he wrote, with chilling foresight:

“The God of woman sold her rights to the god of man so that forever women should worship men.”

That prophecy came true last year as Kenya’s Gen Z youth rose to defend their future. In one of the most public, sinister betrayals of womanhood, female legislators, who themselves menstruate every month, voted to increase taxes on sanitary towels. Even more jarring,  condoms remain free, granted, in the name of HIV prevention. But it didn’t stop there. These same women, beating their breasts on the parliamentary floor, voted a thunderous  “yes” to taxing baby products like diapers, declaring with loyalty not to the people, but to power, “The president said the Finance Bill must pass, and so we will pass it.” 

A radical rethinking of power

Even with the passing of a progressive constitution that guarantees the two-thirds gender rule, Kenya has consistently failed to meet it 15 years later. Today, only 83 out of 350 members in the National Assembly, the very body tasked with law-making, are women. One has to ask: did the drafters of the Constitution envision that systemic forces like patriarchy would continue to deny women real power, even when the law was on their side? Perhaps it was never the Constitution’s job to fix society’s soul. Maybe humaneness, not just legality, was always meant to play a role. And on this, I find myself reluctantly agreeing with the author’s provocation; that perhaps what Kenya needs is not just inclusion, but structural reimagination: a male parliament, a female parliament, and a youth parliament, each grounded in the natural laws of justice and order. Not to divide the nation, but to ensure no group legislates over the lived experiences of another. That way, men wouldn’t be making decisions about uteruses. And equally troubling, women who cannot think beyond patriarchal approval wouldn’t be the ones entrusted to transform the lives of other women.

It’s not nice being a woman

Flipping through the pages of After 4.30, you’ll find yourself seated beside Emili, Lili, and Beti, women who feel eerily familiar. Women you might recognise. As you read, faces come to mind; some alive, some lost. And then, there’s one I still can’t shake. Faith Waeni. A young Kenyan university student found dismembered and headless in an apartment in Roysambu. She’d gone to meet a man she trusted. Before the horror of her death could even settle, the usual suspects reported for duty. That same tired, heartless chorus echoed through comment sections and living rooms:

“She was a slay queen.”
“She loved money.”
“She deserved it.”

But did she?

“Some men are merciless

when you threaten their money security,

run, woman, otherwise 

you’d be murdered in broad daylight…”

Another university student, Sharon Otieno, was killed alongside her unborn child in a murder so gruesome it should have rattled the nation to its core. Her love affair with Okoth Obado, then governor of Migori County, turned fatal. And yet, the public’s verdict? Sharon was too ambitious. That she should have known her place as “the other woman” and quietly accepted whatever token the governor was offering. Not much was said about the man in power, his position, or his complicity. Seven years later, justice remains stalled. Delayed. Deferred.

This, perhaps, is what Maillu meant when he channels Emili Katango to say:
“If a woman has what men desire, then let her seek a better bargain.”Granted. But what Emili, Faith and Sharon learned is that seeking a better bargain often comes at a violent cost. That even having what men desire can sign your death warrant.

Say their names

These stories of Emili, of Sharon, of Faith, are not fiction. They are a haunting reflection of the world we live in. And After 4.30, though first published in 1974, still feels dangerously current. That’s precisely why its return, not just as a reissued book but as a stage play, resonated so deeply. It reminded us that the silence we’ve inherited must be confronted. The story of After 4.30 is far from over as the women of After 4.30 are still with us in memory, in struggle, in resistance.
So I ask you. Yes, you. What will you do After 4.30?

Tracy Ochieng is a staff writer with Books in Africa. Email: tracy.ochieng@ekitabu.com