Soma Nami, Won't You?
Who we are...
PAN-AFRICAN SPIRIT
What started out as a blog for book reviews and a gathering of friends in a book club, has grown into a one-stop book hub.
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Swahili for ‘Read with Me’, SOMA NAMI is a woman-owned and run Pan-African bookstore and literary hub based in Nairobi, Kenya. Over the last three years, the bookstore has grown to become Kenya’s leading Pan-African bookstore offering a vast and eclectic selection of books from a wide range of genres.
Our business model is hybrid, incorporating an online e-commerce store that serves readers from East Africa; and a physical brick and mortar store, designed as a social space with a seating area and coffee station to encourage discovery, connections and conversations around books. We have a strong focus on social selling through our social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok) and through these channels, we have revolutionized the art of selling books in Kenya.
Soma Nami Books places an emphasis on the need to build communities around literary art. Our mission is to build thriving reading communities and to make books by African and its diaspora available and accessible to readers.
Soma Nami Books has become a must-stop visit for visitors to Nairobi seeking to get a taste of Nairobi’s literary culture.
Our Story
BOOK HUB WITH A DIFFERENCE
We exist to centre African stories by making books by Africans available and accessible. We are committed to building communities, and amplifying our stories, ideas and experiences
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We carry the Pan-African spirit and have a justified bias towards books written by people from the African continent, the African diaspora and Women
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Book Club
COMMUNITY
Our free and open-membership book club has been running since 2018. As a fundamental tenet of our book club, we have an obvious bias for African Literature and literature by the African Diaspora and we continue amplifying these voices in our book selections.
Our book club currently boasts a membership of over 1200 registered readers making us one of the largest book clubs and reading communities in the country, by size and impact. We also support other book clubs by sourcing books and offering consultation and guidance on how to run successful communities.
Soma Nami Podcast
ARCHIVING AFRICAN STORIES
The Soma Nami Podcast is a Social and Cultural Commentary podcast of Soma Nami Books whose aim is to archive African stories.
On the podcast, founders Muthoni Muiruri and Wendy Njoroge take on the intersection of books with culture, community, current events and everything in between from a Pan-African lens.
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