Books & Culture: "Our parents were pretentious and hypocritical" now GenZs say Maillu's After 4.30 was ahead of its time

By Joe Modie

When David Maillu happened on the scene with his racy books, he might have excited readers in Kenya and beyond, but certain quarters were not impressed.

Scholars at the time felt that by putting pen on paper – an intellectual endeavour – Maillu was encroaching onto their territory.

“They were preoccupied with the institutions they taught and since I did not go through the formal education system like they did, that was the parameter they used to judge my books and the conclusion was that my writing was not good enough,” explains Maillu.

“There was a lot of propaganda, claims that my books were filled with sex and pornography. To them, I was a gutter of writer,” he says.

Sitting in his rural Mathemboni home, which is at the border of Machakos and Makueni, Maillu talks about a university professor (now deceased), who would excoriate his books in public but would later approach him in private and beg to be taught creative writing.

Maillu’s situation was compounded by the fact that the professors had access to media platforms, where they contributed regularly and influenced their former students who were journalists and editors in these outlets.

Meanwhile his books, Unfit for Human Consumption, My Dear Bottle and After 4.30 were flying off the shelves.

Such was the popularity among readers perhaps due to the negative publicity, in schools, the books were being passed around like contraband. No one wished to be caught reading these books.

Teachers, who consumed Maillu’s books in private would severely punish students they caught reading them.

In the face of such heavy odds, Maillu found solace in Ayi Kwei Armah, he of the Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, told him that My Dear Bottle was being studied at the University of Lesotho, where he was teaching at the time.

“Yet back home, my books were considered rubbish,” Maillu says with a rueful smile.

Recently though, in early March, Maillu received a ringing endorsement an unexpected quarter.

A group of about 15 young men and women, members of the Not Nerdy Book Club, travelled all the way to Mathemboni to meet the author and to discuss his book After 4.30.

The youngsters expressed shock and embarrassment that there was time when Kenyans would not be seen reading the book in public.

Judging from their ages, After 4.30, which was first published in 1974, could be older than some of their parents.

All were unanimous that the issues raised in the book are as relevant today, if not more relevant than they were at the time of its publication.

“When I started reading the book, I kept asking myself, ‘who is this beautiful woman speaking for me through this book?’ then I turned back to the cover to confirm that it was written by a man and not a woman, as I had thought,” Maya Suleiman, a member of the club told Maisha Yetu during the event.

She added that it was eye-opening for her that a man would so accurately capture a woman’s experience.

“It is amazing that the book was written in the early seventies yet can I relate to it in 2025,” she added.

“For raising issues so close to the hearts of women, I would say that Maillu was feminist and not of the toxic variety.”

What about the language – did they find it offensive?

“I loved the rawness of the language used in the book; that is what attracted me to it,” said Maureen Wairimu, another member.

“There are people who might be shocked by the language used and might call it vulgar; it is because they don’t want to call a spade a spade. I am not at all shocked by the language; on the contrary, I loved it.”

Mvua Press, the newest kid in the Kenyan publishing scene has acquired the rights to reprint After 4.30 and the launch is slated for June 28 at the Sarakasi Dome in Ngara.

This new edition, has a swanky new cover done by visual artiste, Michael Soi.

Soi has something in common with Maillu; the subject of some of his paintings is on topics that the so-called polite society considers taboo and scandalous.

He has a series of paintings that features the goings on in strip clubs.

Soi wonders why the society does not wish to discuss what takes place in strip joints, yet the people who patronise the places are people who ordinarily are considered respectable members of the society.

This is the kind of hypocrisy Maillu seeks to expose in After 4.30.

“When I wrote this book, Kenya had been independent for about 10 years,” he explains.

“There were young girls who were coming from the village to start life Nairobi. I wanted to educate them on the ways of the city.”

The issue of prostitutes and prostitution features prominently in the book and the author hoped to remove the sting from the oldest profession.

“Women don’t do it alone; they do it with men, who later turn around and point fingers at the women; I found this to be very unfair,” Maillu said. 

At this point, he turns philosophical when describing the place of women in society.

“Women are mothers of themselves and men too,” he observes.

“Men later turn to brutal against the very same women who mothered them. After 4.30 was meant to ridicule men for their entitlement and unchecked excesses.”

On the topic of sex, Maillu notes that the only reason some people had issues with his writings was the fact that they were uncomfortable with the truths he was serving on topics they considered taboo.

“Perhaps due to our Christian upbringing, matters to do with sex were frowned upon. However, the unvarnished fact is that we were all products of sex,” he says.

“People talk about all the topics under the sun but ignore the fundamental issue of sex. Love is based on sex; the attraction between females and males is above all else, premised on sex," says Maillu, adding that the union of man and woman, through sex, is the steering of life.

He adds that in traditional African societies, a lot of emphasis was placed on sex and sexuality.

“People go through education from nursery to university, without any serious talk on sex, yet when they finish their education and are working, are expected to engage in an act the know very little about.”

“I felt that this was an important subject, yet when you write about it people say you are engaged in pornography,” adds the self-declared president of African spirituality.

An interview of Maillu on his earlier writings is not complete without a retelling of how typical households received his books:

“I knew of households that, at any one time, had three copies of my book,” he explains.

“The husband had a copy, the wife had a copy and the children had theirs too. None of the three parties knew the others had the book.”

“After reading the book, husbands quickly realised that there are parts of the book the wife could use to undermine them, the same also applied to the wives.

"On the other hand, parents did not want the children to know these things. The children, on their part, want to read and discover the adult world. That was not intentional on my part, though,” he concludes with a chuckle.