Braz Menezes

Kenya-born Braz Menezes now a Canadian, lives in Toronto.

A British Commonwealth Scholar (1966), Braz retired from professional life as architect-urban planner and later, more than two decades in urban development with the World Bank.

He took up writing primarily to escape real retirement and launch his Matata Series to chronicle the Goan experience of living under the last fifty years under two Imperial powers in Portuguese India (Goa) and in British East Africa (Kenya).

He enrolled in his first Creative Writing course at George Brown College, and later attended the mentorship program at Humber College in Toronto.

He has just released his final book “Tsavo-The Money Eaters: Ghosts of Greed in Kenya” in the Matata Series in December 2023. His debut novel, “Just Matata: Sin, Saints and Settlers” was released in 2011, and issued in a second edition titled “Beyond the Cape” in 2015. This was followed by “More Matata – After the Mau Mau” in the same year 2015. Book 3 “Among the Jacaranda – Buds of Matata in Kenya” was released in 2018 followed by Book 4 “Soul Searching in the Seychelles” in 2022.

He has contributed various anthologies including Canadian Voice, Volumes I, II, III; Goa Masala; Indian Voices; and Canadian Imprints. Braz Menezes is a member of The Writers Union of Canada (TWUC), the Writers and Editors Network (WEN) in Toronto, and The Goa Writers Group (Goa, India).