NAIROBI, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- A book will be published on a Xinhua-produced documentary, which made enormous success by telling the stories of ordinary Kenyan and Chinese builders of Kenya's landmark railway.
Xinhua News Agency and Enjoy Culture & Media Co., Ltd. signed an agreement in Kenya on Thursday on the publication of "My Railway, My Story," which is based on the documentary depicting the construction of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR).
Representatives of Xinhua's Africa Regional Bureau and Enjoy, a subsidiary of Changjiang Publishing & Media, headquartered in China's Wuhan, inked the document at the Nairobi Terminus of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR.
The book, which will appear in Chinese, English, and French editions, will be largely based on the 90-minute eponymous documentary, which tells behind-the-scene stories from the perspective of ordinary Chinese and Kenyan builders of the SGR, the largest infrastructure project since Kenya's independence.
A flagship project of China-Kenyan cooperation, the 480-km line has been providing daily passenger services between the Kenyan capital and the port city of Mombasa since its inauguration on June 1.
The making of the three-episode documentary took the Xinhua team and its partners more than two years for field interviewing and post production, with raw footage totaling over 200 hours.
The first two episodes of the documentary, "Bridges" and "Stations," were first screened on Kenya's major public broadcaster KBC, attracting an estimated 30 million viewers in five days after debut in late May, according to KBC statistics.
The third episode of the documentary, "Roads," came out after the inauguration of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR.
The documentary, initially in English and later rendered into Chinese, French, and Swahili, has since also appeared on TV stations of China, Nigeria and Zambia, and was made available online and on social media platforms.
Wu Zhiqiang, deputy director-general of Xinhua Africa, hailed the book deal as a good start for the two sides' cooperation in offering all-media services and strengthening strategic transformation and upgrade.
Yang Yunpeng, director of Enjoy Culture & Media, which launched its Kenya presence in July 2016, said the book will be released in early 2018, pledging to work with Xinhua in putting out more media products to enhance the understanding between China and Kenya in particular and Africa in general.
Yao Ming, counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Kenya, David Muswii, deputy director of Kenya National Library Service, and Chinese and Kenyan media representatives based in Nairobi also attended the event.
Yang Yi, one of the Xinhua documentary's directors, said the book would further enhance the documentary's impact.
"Just like the SGR, 'My Railway, My Story' is also a work of cooperation between Chinese and Kenyans," Yang said.
Peterson Gitonga, a duty manager at Nairobi Terminus, at the ceremony hailed the long-term benefits of the railway.
"The Standard Gauge Railway has transformed Kenya in the right direction that has been accepted by many of its citizens," he said.
"For sure the Standard Gauge Railway will remain to be my railway, my story," Gitonga added.
