Overview

My research examines contemporary African literature (emphasis on Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somaliland, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda), Africa-based publishers and festivals, material cultures of the book and global literary networks.

I am also an editor and literary producer with 20-years experience of working in the publishing industry. I was previously Head of Humanities at Palgrave Macmillan, responsible for paperback publishing across history, literature, theatre and language. I worked for four years as an Editor and Producer at Kenya’s leading literary publisher Kwani Trust and am currently a Director for Kigali-based publishing company Huza Press. 

I co-founded www.africainwords.com and regularly curate workshops and festivals including producing Africa Writes in 2015 (the UK’s largest festival of African literature at the British Library) and founding and co-producing Africa Writes–Bristol and Africa Writes–Exeter. I am also part of the Steering Group for Exeter’s UNESCO City of Literature programme and the University of Exeter’s Creative Industries Strategy Group.

I am Co-Director of University of Exeter's new MA Publishing programme. 

Office Hours: Please sign up for my Office Hours on TEAMS via this link here.  

Back to top

Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2021 | 2019 | 2018 | 2016 |

2021

• Wallis K, Geuza ZR. (2021) Reading Dar es Salaam’s (Female-led) Book Clubs as Paravirtual Networks, Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, volume 7, pages 1-31, DOI:10.1080/23277408.2021.1920121. [PDF]

2019

• Wallis K. (2019) Passeurs de mémoire populaire : Kwani Trust et les lieux de l’histoire, Itinéraires, no. 2019-1, DOI:10.4000/itineraires.5947. [PDF]
• Wallis K. (2019) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Networks, Literary Activism and the Production of World Literature, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to World Literature, Wiley Blackwell.
• Wallis K. (2019) Publishers’ Networks and the Making of 21st Century African Literature in English, Routledge Handbook of African Literature, Routledge, 413-428.

2018

• Wallis K. (2018) Exchanges in Nairobi and Lagos: Mapping Literary Networks and World Literary Space, Research in African Literatures, volume 49:1, pages 163-186, DOI:10.2979/reseafrilite.49.1.10.

2016

• Wallis K. (2016) How Books Matter, Wasafiri, volume 31, no. 4, pages 39-46, DOI:10.1080/02690055.2016.1220698. [PDF]

Back to top

Teaching

Modules taught

• EAS1040 - Academic English
• EAS2089 - Creative Industries: Their Past, Our Future
• EAS2090 - Humanities after the Human: Further Adventures in Critical Theory
• EAS3190 - African Narratives
• EASM169 - Publishing and Power: Black and Asian Literary Networks in the UK

Back to top