Westlands

This guide to Westlands in Nairobi follows Vidhu Shah and Maneklal Rughani, two bookshop owners who built a mall modeled on London's Brent Cross and had already let out two hundred rental spaces when soldiers attempted to overthrow the government in 1982. With gunfire in the streets and tanks near State House, the tenants who had promised to fill their mall packed up and left the country instead. Shah and Rughani had already built their Text Book Centre chain from nothing after leaving family businesses upcountry for the capital.