User:Empres85/Rasna Warah

Rasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and photojournalist. She writes a weekly column for the Daily Nation, Kenya’s largest newspaper, and has published four books: Triple Heritage (1998); Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits (2008); Red Soil and Roasted Maize (2011); and Mogadishu Then and Now (2012). She has worked with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme as editor of the State of the World’s Cities report and Habitat Debate and has been writing about social and urban issues for more than two decades. Her articles and photo essays on Nairobi, Mumbai, Kabul, Havana and Mogadishu have been published in the East African, Cityscapes, UN Chronicle, People and the Planet, Sustainable Development International, Habitat Debate and State of the World’s Cities reports.

Biography
Rasna Warah was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1962. She is a fourth-generation Kenyan whose great- grandfather arrived in Kenya from Lahore (then in British India) in 1897. Her father, Kulwant Singh Warah, was a famous photographer and owner of Studio One in Nairobi. The history of her family’s history has been captured in her memoir, Triple Heritage: A Journey to Self-discovery, which was published in 1998. She is married to Gray Phombeah, a former radio journalist with the BBC World Service. Rasna Warah holds an M.A. in Communication for Development from Malmo University in Sweden and a B.Sc in Psychology and Women’s Studies from Suffolk University in Boston, USA.

Literary career
Rasna Warah has a long literary career, which began in the mid-1980s when she worked as an assistant editor with the now defunct Viva magazine. In 1992, she worked as an editor and columnist with the Standard on Sunday. From 1994 till 2009, she was an editor and writer at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), where she edited the quarterly Habitat Debate magazine and co-authored and edited the State of the World’s Cities report. Her articles and essays on cities and slums have been widely published and cited. She is currently a weekly columnist with the Daily Nation newspaper.

Warah’s short story “The Unbearable Heaviness of Comfort” was published in Kwani? , Kenya’s premier literary journal, in 2003 and re-published under the title “The Last Supper” in Man of the House and Other Short Stories (CCC Press, 2011).

Her first book, Triple Heritage: A Journey to Self-discovery (1998), explores the social, economic and political history of Asians in Kenya. It has been described as “a sober, well-thought-out examination of the Asian community and its place in the wider Kenyan society”.

She edited Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits, an anthology published in 2008, which critiques the aid industry in East Africa. The book exposes the reader to a much-needed African perspective on the development industry and the reasons why it has failed so miserably in lifting millions of people out of poverty. One reviewer said that Warah’s anthology “is not an introduction to a world beyond development, but rather a challenge to begin imagining one”.

Red Soil and Roasted Maize, published in 2011, is a selection of Warah’s essays and articles on contemporary Kenya. It analyses events that have shaped Kenyans’ lives and dreams, from the turbulent transition to democracy in 2002, to a flawed election and its aftermath in 2007.

Her latest book, Mogadishu Then and Now: A Pictorial Tribute to Africa’s Most Wounded City, is an attempt to redeem Mogadishu’s damaged reputation and restore its glory in the public imagination and in the Somali people’s collective memory. The book showcases Somalia’s capital city in all its splendour prior to the civil war in the 1990s and contrasts this with the devastation and destruction that has characterised the city for more than two decades.

Books Short Stories
 * 1) Warah, Rasna. Triple Heritage: a Journey to Self-discovery. Nairobi: R. Warah, 1998. Print.
 * 2) Warah, Rasna. Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits: an Anthology. Central Milton Keynes: AuthorHouse, 2008. Print.
 * 1) Warah, Rasna. “The Unbearable Heaviness of Comfort.” Kwani 02. Kwani Trust, 2003. Print.

Articles
 * 1) Warah, Rasna. "Kenyan Men Say No to Female Circumcision." Viva (1987). Print.
 * 2) Warah, Rasna. "A Conference in Kigali." UN Chronicle 35.3 (1998). Print.
 * 3) Warah, Rasna. "Outwitting Outlaws." UN Chronicle 35.3 (1998). Print.
 * 4) Warah, Rasna. "Rwanda Women to Inherit Property." The East African (2000). Print.
 * 5) Warah, Rasna. "The Chronicle Library Shelf." UN Chronicle 38.2 (2001). Print.
 * 6) Warah, Rasna. "The Emerging ‘Urban Archipelago." UN Chronicle. 38.1 (2001). Print.
 * 7) Warah, Rasna. "Nairobi’s Slums: Where Life for Women Is Nasty, Brutish and Short." Habitat Debate 4.4 (2002). Print.
 * 8) Warah, Rasna. "Re-emerging Kabul." UN Chronicle 39.2 (2002). Print.
 * 9) Warah, Rasna. "Women Involved In Reconstruction." UN Chronicle 39.2 (2002). Print.
 * 10) Warah, Rasna. "Slums and Housing in Africa." UN Chronicle 40.4 (2004). Print.
 * 11) Warah, Rasna. “Divided City: Information Poverty in Nairobi’s Slums.” UN Chronicle 41.2 (2004). Print.
 * 12) Warah, Rasna. “Illicit Diamonds.” UN Chronicle 41.3 (2004). Print.
 * 13) Warah, Rasna. “Kenya’s Lone Crusader Wins Noble peace Prize.” UN Chronicle 41.1 (2005). Print.
 * 14) Warah, Rasna. “The State of the World’s Cities, 2004/2005 Globalization and Urban Culture.” UN Chronicle 41.1 (2005). Print.
 * 15) Warah, Rasna. “The State of the World’s Cities, 2004/2005 Globalization and Urban Culture.” UN Chronicle 41.1 (2005). Print.
 * 16) Warah, Rasna. “Chaotic Urban Transition in Africa.” UN Chronicle 42.3 (2005). Print.
 * 17) Warah, Rasna. “Africa’s Urban Youth Find A Voice.” UN Chronicle 43.2 (2006). Print.
 * 18) Warah, Rasna. “Urban Slum Trends in the 21st Century.” UN Chronicle 43.2 (2006). Print.
 * 19) Warah, Rasna. “Nairobi Kenya: Life in Kiberia.” World Watch 20.2 (2007).Print.

Further reading
 * 1) Robertson, Claire. "Grassroots in Kenya: Women, Genital Mutilation, and Collective Action." The University of Chicago Press 21.3 (1996). Print.
 * 2) Felmeta, Aaron Xavier. “Feminism and International Law: Theory, Methodology, and Substantive Reform.” Human Rights Quarterly 22.3 (2000). Print.
 * 3) Crook, Jamie. “Promoting Peace and Economic Security in Rwanda Through Fair and Equitable Land Rights.” California Law Review 94.5 (2006). Print.
 * 4) Mehta, Makrand. “Gujarati Business Communities in East African Diaspora: Major Historical Trends.” Economic and Political Weekly 36.20 (2001). Print.
 * 5) Alger, Chadwick F. “There are Peacebuilding Tasks for Everybody.” International Studies Review 9.3 (2007). Print.