Brief Bio of Cynthia Salvadori

Cynthia Salvadori’s connection with East Africa goes back 150 years. Her mother, the artist Joyce Woodforde Pawle, was related to John Hanning Speke who in 1857 discovered the source of the Nile, and to John G (Jack) Haggard* who in 1881– 85 was the first British vice consul in Lamu. She herself started life on a farm near Njoro in 1930s when her father, Max Salvadori, a political activist and historian, sought temporary refuge for his bride and himself in Kenya after having been jailed in Italy for his anti-Fascist activities. Her father left Kenya shortly after she was born, to continue, eventually, as lieutenant colonel in the British Special Forces, his militant fight against Fascism, while his wife, daughter and son were parked in the USA.

Salvadori herself thus grew up in America and Europe but in 1962, after attending the University of California at Berkeley where she became intrigued by social anthropology, she returned to Kenya and has considered that home ever since. In the 1970s she and her late colleague and companion Andrew Fedders combined efforts, she as photographer, he as writer, to produce three books (Maasai; Turkana, Pastoral Craftsmen; Peoples and Cultures of Kenya) and numerous articles about Kenya.

In the 1980s Salvadori turned her attention to the Indian inhabitants of Kenya, whose history and cultures had remained virtually unrecorded despite their conspicuous (and often resented) economic importance. With the support of Kul Bhakoo, the founder of Kenway Publications, she compiled the encyclopaedic Through Open Doors, A View of Asian Cultures in Kenya. The first edition, published in 1983, met with such an enthusiastic reception that she did an updated, revised edition which was published in 1987. She then started, again with Kul Bhakoo’s encouragement, recording the personal histories of Indians in Kenya which resulted in the three-volume set entitled We Came in Dhows, Stories of the Indian Pioneers in Kenya. While that was being published she with her historian colleague Judy Aldrick and two translators, Vimla Chavda and Shariffa Keshavjee, translated and annotated two original Gujarati journals (one Bohra and one Parsee) which was published as Two Indian Travellers, East Africa 1902–1905.

Salvadori then turned her attention to the north of Kenya, translating(from the Italian) and doing field work to help revise Gabra, Camel Nomads of Northern Kenya by Paul Tablino (1999). While working on that she compiled The Forgotten People Revisited, Abuses of Human Rights in Marsabit and Moyale Districts for Kenya Human Rights Commission (2000). At the turn of the millennium she spent six years working with the original author in southern Ethiopia to completely revise, and to illustrate, a massive Borana dictionary entitled Aada Boraanaa, A Dictionary of Borana Culture which was published in early 2007. During that time she also translated (again from the Italian) and edited Decisions in the Shade; Political and Juridical Processes among the Oromo-Borana by Marco Bassi, which was published in 2005.

She then turned her attention back to the Indians of Kenya; her latest book is Settling in a Strange Land, Stories of Punjabi Muslim Pioneers in Kenya, which was published in December 2010.

*"Jack Haggard, 1st British Vice-consul at Lamu, was the brother of Rider Haggard. Jack had suggested that Rider and his wife Louise (my mother's maternal aunt) come out to visit him, along with their mutual friend Frederick Jackson. For some reason Rider & wife did not come out, but Rider used stories that Jack told him about East Africa as the basis for his books such as King Solomon's Mines. My mother remembered sitting on Uncle Rider's knees listening to the stories.

"Jackson did come, spent a while in Lamu with Jack (he is said to have been the model for Alan Quartermain) and then worked for the IBEA and eventually rose to become governor of Uganda."
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CYNTHIA SALVADORI