Joe Khamisi book ‘Looters and Grabbers’ not sold in Kenyan stores

An explosive book by former MP Joe Khamisi castigating corrupt Kenyan leaders is now being sold on Amazon.

This after it was alleged that bookstores in the country are not willing to stock it.

A picture posted on the former MP’s Twitter account shows an email said to be from one of the stores that declined to sell it on his behalf.

“Kenyan authors cannot get their books into bookshops because stores fear legal action,” Khamisi lamented.

Titled Kenya: Looters and Grabbers: 54 Years of Corruption and Plunder by the Elite, 1963-2017, the book highlights corruption scandals that have plagued Kenya since independence.

Initially, it was being sold on an online bookstore but later Khamisi availed a PDF copy for Ksh.500.

The WhatsApp version was quickly shared enabling those who had not paid for it to also gain access.

Khamisi’s alleged experience with Kenyan publishers and bookstores has elicited mixed reactions.

Fr. Gabriel Dolan, a columnist with the Standard Newspaper, said: “The government may never allow you to buy a hard copy of this remarkable work.”

This is not the first controversial book that Khamisi has written: seven years ago, he published another titled The Politics of Betrayal, Diary of a Kenyan Legislator that poured vitriol on the then Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka.

Two years later, he would then publish a memoir titled Dash before Dusk: A Slave Descendant’s Journey into Freedom, that delved into his personal life casting aside his preferred themed of politics.

Other books that later gripped Kenyans include Michela Wrong’s It’s Our Turn To Eat and Miguna Miguna’s Peeling Back The Mask.

Wrong’s book stirred controversy after anti-corruption czar John Githongo blew the lid off the Anglo Leasing scandal and was forced to flee the country fearing for his life.

Leaked excerpts of Miguna’s book, that is centred around his professional relationship with the then Prime Minister Raila Odinga, also found their way to WhatsApp with Kenyans quickly sharing the pages online.