I haven’t read this book, After 4:30, but I promise you, from its cover, it is going to be a story you will love. On the cover, there is a young woman with big hair, big sun goggles and full lips, of course, she is black. The portrait painting is typical of Michael Soy’s style, but neither Soy nor the book’s author, David Maillu, is your typical artist. On June 28, 2025, Mvua Press will re-launch the book with a new cover. I thought I should take the opportunity to give my understanding of Michael Soy’s paintings and why you should, this one time, judge the book by the cover, literally.
For Soy’s portrait to grace Maillu’s book, this is that historic meeting you don’t want to miss out on. Maillu is said to be among, if not the most prolific, writers in Africa. Soy produces art not just for museums and collectors’ worth paintings; his works keep circulating as tote bags and stickers. I don’t know what happened to the condoms, but I have kept the pack from his 2016 Kampala exhibition. On the outside of the book, we have a contemporary painter showing us the face of an African woman, and on the inside, you get the poetic representation of African life. I don’t know if it is paint that bleeds into text or if it is text that has fermented into paint. I just know this is not an everyday artistic experience where you have to many a time to consume visual and literary arts separately.
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My knowledge of David Maillu’s work comes from an interesting place. In my early 20s, I had a friend who didn’t drink, smoke or enjoy the nightlife. Yet the admiration with which he spoke about My Dear Bottle eventually made me think Maillu is my kind of writer. The clarity of ideas, the flow of the logic and most of all the artistic appeal with which Maillu portrayed alcohol in the cruelty of the world that made even a man who doesn’t drink humanise drinking. The same way that man made me admire Maillu without having read him, Soy’s painting on the cover is calling me to read After 4:30.
But is a cover an important part of the book? Yes, it is the kick-start of imagining the journey through which you will travel in the book. When I read the point at which the main character in So Long a Letter was going to break, I looked at the woman on the cover for visual reference. On that particular day, her husband of many years left in the morning as if to work, only for his relatives to casually come and inform Rahmatullaye that her husband is now married to their firstborn daughter’s best friend. Rahamtullaye serves them something, then sees them off. She comes back and starts looking at her mom’s and wife’s bodies, which her husband has just abandoned. The woman on the cover of the Kiswahili edition of this book is the author herself. The double chin and the big loose dress gave me the visuals with which to mould the body and life of Rahmatullah.
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Over the last 11 years, I have kept seeing myself in Michel Soy’s work. Whether I have a small afro, braids, locks or a low cut, there will be, if not in the last tote bag, then in the next wood cut, a woman whose hair is recognizably African. These women have full bodies, too. At this point, I cannot guarantee Maillu’s representation of women is as vivid and diverse as Soy’s. Yet I am positive the whole idea of collaborating Soy’s painting and Maillu’s literary work has come from how both artists deal with the questions that others tiptoe around. Subjects of sex, sexuality, male gaze, women’s bodies and nightlife are things we pretend not to have so that we can advance our professional life and save face for social acceptance.
On a personal level, this may be a long-overdue call to read Maillu. Soy’s painting is the reminder I needed. As an African, especially in Eastern Africa, I am inviting you too to take the new book cover as a visual peephole through which we will visit the life After 4:30 in the 1970s Nairobi.
Diana Kamara identifies herself as the daughter of Adria Kokulengya. She can be reached at dianakkamara@gmail.com. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
