Khadambi Asalache

Khadambi Asalache (28 February 1935 - 26 May 2006) was a Kenyan poet and author who settled in London. He was later a civil servant at HM Treasury. He left his lavishly decorated South London terraced house, 575 Wandsworth Road to the National Trust.

Asalache was born in Kaimosi in western Kenya, the eldest child of the local chief. In his youth, he read Shakespeare while herding cattle. He was educated at Mang'u High School, run by the Holy Ghost Fathers, where he was given the Christian name Nathaniel, and then studied architecture at the Royal Technical College in Nairobi (later to become the University of Nairobi). After studying fine art in Rome, Geneva and Vienna, he moved to London in 1960, where he taught Swahili at the Berlitz School, and worked for the BBC African Service. Though with great intellectual talent, Asalache was humble and down-to-earth. Whenever he visited his rural community in Kenya, he would freely mix with the community members and look out for a number of his youth friends.

He was a pioneer of modern Kenyan literature in English. His first novel, The Calabash of Life, published in 1967, focused on Kenyan tribesmen opposing a usurper and quickly became an international success. He also wrote and produced an episode of the BBC series Danger Man. Extracts from his second novel, The Latecomer, with animal characters, were broadcast by the BBC African Service in January 1971.

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