Khadambi Asalache, poet and pioneer of modern English Kenyan literature, lived an extraordinary life. Now, more than a decade after his death, the public can view his stunning estate, which he left to the National British Trust. The estate is exceptional because for more than 20 years he decorated it extensively with Moorish-influenced fretwork which he cut by hand from discarded pine doors and wooden boxes.
Born in 1935 in Kaimosi, western Kenya, as the first child of the local chief, Khadambi Asalache received a remarkable education. He went to the Royal Technical College in Nairobi to read architecture but was diverted while at a students' conference in Tunisia and spent the next few years in Rome, Geneva and Vienna, where he studied fine art. He moved to London in 1960.
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