Google created a doodle in honor of Kenyan author Marjorie Phyllis Oludhe Macgoye today (October 21). This occurred on the day that she would have turned 94 years old.
She was a poet, missionary bookseller, and is frequently referred to as the “mother of Kenyan literature.”
On December 1, 2015, she passed away at the age of 87.
The novelist and poet from Britain primarily discussed Kenya’s post-colonial challenges in his works. She also wrote stories for magazines and published children’s books.
She relocated to Kenya during a period of intense political unrest and colonial conflict. She first met Oludhe MacGoye in Kenya’s western lake region, where they fell in love.
She frequently hosted literary initiatives at the time that assisted Kenyan women in learning to read and write.
She got heavily active in social activity, giving lectures and participating in national discussions about the lives of women.
Macgoye, a former teacher in Southampton who received numerous scholarships, discovered her passion of writing through the numerous letters she wrote to her parents. She is an English master’s degree holder.
She was acknowledged as a pioneer in the struggle for the rights of the girl child in Kenya since she produced poems decades before the development strategy to fight for their rights began to take shape.
Her poem Atieno Yo, which portrays the condition of African girl children and women whose labor and sweat are seldom recognized, is a masterpiece.
Marjorie, who was better known by her close friends, family, and coworkers as Nyaloka, penned Coming to Birth, one of her best-known works that was formerly required reading in Kenyan secondary schools. In 1986, the book took home the Sinclair Prize.
Freedom Song, Song of Nyar Loka, The Present Moment, Street Life, Murder in Majengo, Chira, Homing In, and A Farm Called Kishinev, winner of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, are only a few of her other works.
She is ranked alongside East African great novelists like Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Okello Oculli, Taban Lo Lyong, and Micere Mugo.
