How to Build a Library (documentary film)

In 2017, Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuko decided to restore and restock the dilapidated McMillan Memorial Library, once a whites-only library built by the British colonizers in downtown Nairobi, Kenya.

Publisher Angela Wachuko and author Wanjiro Koinange face the task with great energy and enthusiasm, but encounter obstacles they could never have anticipated along the way.

In this documentary, directed by Maia Lekow and Christopher King and filmed over eight years, we follow the two Kenyan women as they navigate local politics, raise millions in funding, and confront the ghosts of Kenya’s colonial past.

The film is in English.