Peter Kimani

Alum 1999

Peter Kimani is a leading African writer of his generation. Born in 1971 in Kenya, he started his career as a journalist and is the author of several works of fiction and poetry. He was one of only three international poets commissioned by National Public Radio to compose and present a poem to mark Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.

Peter earned his doctorate in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program in 2014, and is a faculty member at Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications in Nairobi.

Dance of the Jakaranda is his third novel. His two previously published novels are Before The Rooster Crows and Upside Down.

Peter is a founding faculty member of the Graduate School of Media and Communications at Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya. He is also an award-winning journalist, rising to senior editor at The Standard. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, The New African, Sky News, and the Daily Nation. Peter has toured Kenya and the surrounding region extensively, covering conflicts from Darfur to Somalia, while documenting reconstruction efforts, from South Sudan to Somaliland.