Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye (born 1928) is an English/Kenyan novelist, essayist and poetess.[1]
Biography
Born Marjorie King in 1928 in Southampton, England,[1] Marjorie travelled to Kenya to work as a missionary in 1954. She worked at the S.J. Moore Bookshop on Government Road, now Moi Avenue in Nairobi, for some years. There she organised readings which were attended by, among others, Okot P'Bitek, the author of Song of Lawino, and Jonathan Kariara, a Kenyan poet. She met Macgoye, a medical doctor, and the two were married in 1960.[1] In 1971, an anthology entitled Poems from East Africa included the acclaimed poem "A Freedom Song".[1] Her 1986 novel Coming to Birth won the Sinclair Prize[1] and has been used as a set book in Kenyan high schools. She has been called the "mother of Kenyan literature".[1][2]
Works
- 1972: Murder in Majengo
- 1977: Song of Nyarloka and Other Poems
- 1986: Coming to Birth
- 1987: Street Life
- 1987: The Present Moment
- 1994: Homing In
- 1997: Chira
- 2005: A Farm Called Kishinev (winner: Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature)
- 2009: The Composition of Poetry
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 ed. by Simon Gikandi. Encyclopedia of African literature. London: Routledge. p. 135. ISBN 0-415-23019-5.
- ↑ "Coming to Birth". The Feminist Press. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
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