The Kenya Literature Bureau was initially established by the "East Africa governments (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda)"[1] in 1947 as the East African Literature Bureau as an "offshoot" of the missionary-owned Ndia Kuu Press in order to publish books for the general public in Kiswahili, East African vernacular languages and English.
[2][3] The Bureau's first director was Charles Granston Richards, who held that post for fifteen years.
[4][5] The regional status continued after independence with the establishment of the East African Community (EAC).
In the early 1970s the Bureau published many pioneering anthologies of English-language poetry from East Africa: It is significant of East African writers' indifference to political boundaries that such anthologies were all compiled, without a single exception, on an inter-territorial basis, with Kenya and Uganda supplying the greater part of the material.
In 1980, the KLB Act was passed by the Kenyan Parliament making it a state corporation—a status it holds to this day.