About Old Africa
Old Africa magazine seeks to tell the story of East Africa’s past through well-written stories and vintage photographs. Founded in October 2005, the first issue featured a story about the Royal Navy’s ill-fated attempt to launch a naval presence on Lake Rudolph (now Lake Turkana) and an account of the Kedong Massacre. Since then the magazine has published stories and photos from Kenya’s diverse ethnic groups – African, Asian and European – to preserve East Africa’s history. Old Africa is always scouting out new sources and finding people who have made East Africa their home who have stories to tell. Old Africa covers the period of time 40 years in the past and earlier, so each year of publication another year of stories is unveiled. From 2012 we’ll be looking for stories from 1972 and earlier. If you have stories to tell or photos to share or if you just enjoy reading a good story, Old Africa magazine is for you. East Africa’s history comes alive with compelling stories and photographs on the pages of Old Africa magazine.
Old Africa Books
Lives Lived in Africa
When the Old Africa editors came across an old journal dating from about 1918, we edited it and ran it chapter by chapter over a period of several years in Old Africa magazine as Watson’s Journal. Soon other book-length works came to our attention. We began serializing two more books, but realized the pages of the magazine were too limited. So in 2010 we launched Old Africa Books, a book publishing division focusing on biographies, journals and memoirs of those who have made Africa their home. Our first title, The Fannin Papers by Judy Aldrick, told the little-known story of a British housewife from Kenya who traveled through Abyssinia in 1938 and spied on the Italian war preparations. Since then we have published Drinking the Wind, a memoir of Tanganyika, Kenya and Sudan and Permanent Savings, a short novel on drought and Somali culture in northern Kenya. Two titles came out in the fall of 2011: Tribal Origins, a memoir from Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia and Chasing the Rain, a biographical novel tracing an African’s quest for God set in colonial Sudan. We are working several new titles to come out in 2012.
Old Africa books are well-told stories in the same tradition as the shorter pieces our readers have come to enjoy from the pages of Old Africa magazine.
