Professor Micere Githae Mugo, a renowned playwright, author, activist, lecturer, and poet, has died.
Mugo died last Friday at the age of 80.
Leaders have mourned her loss alongside Kenyans, recognizing her as a real inspiration to many generations.
Micere’s revolutionary spirit, according to former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, will live on.
“Our Comrade, Sister, and Revolutionary, Professor Micere Githae Mugo has joined our ancestors some four hours ago. May she shine in the light of the ancestral abode as she shone on earth with revolutionary light. Her revolutionary spirit lives,” Mutunga said.
Narc Kenya Party leader Martha Karua described Micere as an icon of the struggle for academic freedom.
She noted that it was a privilege she got to know and share her knowledge.
“The passing on of Professor Micere Githae Mugo is a great loss to her family, friends and humanity. She was an icon of the struggle for academic freedom and civil liberties in Kenya and beyond, a role model to many. It is a privilege to have known her and drank from her well of wisdom. Her immense contributions to humanity will live on,” Karua said.
Mugo was a political activist who fought against human rights abuses in Kenya. The activism led to her arrest and she was forced out of the country in 1982 after an attempted coup.
Mugo went to Zimbabwe and continued writing. In 1991, her second work of literary criticism, African Orature and Human Rights appeared.
Her work has been cited as verbal arts that express both society’s negative and positive qualities.
Mugo’s publications include six books, a play co-authored with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and three monographs.
Mugo was a founder of the Pan African Community of Central New York and one of the organisation’s first presidents.
She was also the founder and former president of the Syracuse-based United Women of Africa Organisation.
