Kinyanjui Kombani

After completing his secondary school education at Molo Academy in 1998, Kinyanjui Kombani was admitted to Kenyatta University in 2000 and graduated in 2004 with a Bachelor of Education in English & Literature. He also completed a program on Business mentorship at Inoorero University in 2012, becoming a career business mentor.

Afterwards, he successfully applied for a position at Standard Chartered Bank as Customer Relations manager, despite not having graduated with a course in a relevant field. Other positions held there include Personal Financial Consultant, Business Financial Consultant, Relations Manager in Premium Banking, and most recently, the team leader for SME Banking in Kenya.^[2]

Kinyanjui Kombani started writing in 2004 while at Kenyatta University, penning a play titled Carcasses for the Meat Trade Awareness project by Born Free Foundation.^[3] The play was widely performed by Kenyatta University travelling theatre. In Kenya alone, more than 60,000 rural people viewed the play's performance. It was also staged elsewhere in Africa, Europe, and the United States. In 2004, Kombani also wrote the script for Mizoga, the film adaptation of the play which was shot by Born Free Foundation yet again.

In the same year (2004), his first novel The Last Villains of Molo, was published by Acacia Stantex Publishers, two years after finishing the manuscript and signing a contract. The author stated in interviews that he did not earn royalties from the book for ten years.^[4] It was not until Longhorn Publishers released a second imprint in 2012 that the book, and its author, received widespread publicity.

In 2007, the writer moved to Longhorn publishers and published two children's stories; Wangari Maathai: Mother of Trees, and We Can be Friends, the latter of which was reproduced for the Rwandan market a year later in 2008.^[2] By this time, Kinyanjui was a well renowned novelist with a considerable fan base.

In 2012, The Last Villains of Molo was republished by Longhorn Publishers. With proper marketing, the book was positively received by critics and the public, and it launched the career of Kinyanjui Kombani as a contemporary novelist. The book was soon approved for use as a study text in several universities in the country, including his Alma mater, Kenyatta University. The novel is also studied in universities in Germany, the United States, and England in both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.^[3] In 2014, his second novel Den of Inequities, another odyssey into the experiences of slum life in Nairobi, was published to a positive reception yet again.^[5] The text has also been used as a study text in Kenya and Rwanda universities.

1. Kinyanjui Kombani. (18 November 2016)."Why I may return my award, says the chagrined writer". The Nation. Retrieved 30 September 2017. Updated 5 July 2020.