Obituary: Death homes in on Coming to Birth author Majorie Oludhe Mcgoye

In yet another grief on the Kenyan literary stage, legendary writer and poet Majorie Oludhe Mcgoye has passed on. The writer reportedly died at her Ngara home on December 1st in what has shocked not just her relatives but fans and readers in Kenya and abroad.

Majorie Oludhe Mcgoye, who died at 87,was a renowned writer in the Kenya mostly known for her book, Coming to Birth starring Paulina Were and Martin Okeyo. The novel has for many years been used in Kenyan schools as set book. 

Her death follows those of Grace Ogot, known for her literary work in Land Without Thunder: Margaret Ogola known for her novel The River and the Source. Speaking after Marjorie’s death, PEN Kenya President Khainga O’Okwemba expressed his and the institution’s shock on the death of the celebrated writer. “It is very saddening to lose her after Margaret Ogolla, Grace Ogot and Asenath Odanga,” he said.

Award-winning poet

PEN Kenya an international institution that promotes literature and freedom of expression governed by the PEN Charter and the principles it embodies ensuring unhampered transmission of thoughts.

Macgoye, a former missionary from Southampton, United Kingdom had established herself as distinguished poet and writer, winning various awards. While the world mourns her demise, her literary work is celebrated and her skills will be around for a long time to come. Schools continue to seek after her novels and poems. 

She has been ranked alongside other Kenyan writers among them, David Maillu, Charles Mangua, Mwangi Gicheru, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Muthoni Likimani. Coming to Birth, arguably her most read novel in which Marjorie Macgoye deftly interweaves the story of one young woman’s tumultuous coming of age with the history of a nation emerging from colonialism won the Sinclair Prize for fiction in 1986.

She also wrote Street Life, The Present Moment, Homing In, Chira and A Farm Called Kishinev that won Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 2005 and The Composition of Poetry published in 2009. Marjorie married a former Kenyan medical doctor Oludhe Macgoye in 1960.

May her Soul Rest in Peace!

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