Prof KEN_WALIBORA’S LAST WORDS
On his Facebook wall he wrote this..”I am currently the Quality Manager, Kiswahili media in the Nation Media Group, East Africa’s leading media house.
My first book Siku Njema (1996) has become my indelible identity. I am variously referred to as Ken Walibora Waliaula the Siku Njema Author, the author of Siku Njema or acclaimed author of Siku Njema. Everything else may be right except “acclaimed.” I cherish the quality of humility which some see as a weakness.
I respect all people and look for the best in others, striving always to avoid prejudging and undermining others. It has been my privilege to straddle the two worlds of academia and broadcast media. I first worked as a high school language teacher, then probation officer then news editor, newscaster, translator, football commentator.
I have a PhD in Comparative Cultural Studies with an emphasis on world literature. My interests include anglophone world literature, African continental and diasporic literature, swahiliphone literature and literature in translation. But as I said it is my creative literary productions that have arrested the imagination of those who happen to know me a bit.
When I die some may choose to remember that there was once a writer called Ken Walibora Waliaula; yet I know that my detractors will elect to remember only my alleged wrongs. I am reminded of the words of Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; “The good people do is interred with them.” My wish though is that when I die, my epigraph should read: ” Ken Walibora didn’t live as if he will never die and didn’t die as if he never lived.” Above all else, when acts of humility and sacrifice are long forgotten and cast away, my Maker will remember me and unmake all the undoing.”