Margaret Ogola’s literary spirit lives on eight years later

Two Fridays ago, the National Museums of Kenya in partnership with the Writers Guild opened its doors to literary enthusiasts for a public reading of Margaret Ogola’s writings as the country marked her 61st birthday posthumously. Dr Ogola died in 2011.

Dubbed “Public Reading of Margaret Ogola’s works”, the book event was held at the museum’s main library along Museum Hill Road in Nairobi. It was meant to celebrate the work of the prolific author of the popular novel, The River and the Source (1994), after the US tech giant Google, through its doodle, honoured her for her writings.

Google, through its Twitter handle, posted: “Happy to celebrate Kenyan award-winning author, activist and doctor, the late Dr. Margaret Ogola, author of The River and the Source.” It went further to ask literary devotees their best quotes from the book.

BIOGRAPHY

I first read Ogola’s maiden novel, The River and the Source, back in 1999 as a high school student. Coincidentally, I was at the Siaya-based Usenge High School, a spit-throw away from Asembo, the birthplace of Ogola.

As we gathered in the library two weeks ago, we were first taken through the ‘fat’ biography of the author who sat for her O-Level at Thompson’s Girls’ High School and did her A-Level exams at Alliance Girls’ High School before proceeding to the University of Nairobi for a bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery in 1984 and later graduating with a Master of Medicine and Paediatrics in 1990 from the same school.

Upon reading a few excerpts from her first novel, the old-tired question of whether Ogola was a diehard feminist erupted.

The room was split in the middle as some of the event attendees affirmed that most of her works portray her as a feminist while some refuted this allegation.

KILLING SPREE

Vera Dindi, one of the event’s co-hosts, remarked that though Ogola was on a killing spree of male characters in the novel, the tag of feminism was farfetched.

It was a hilarious moment when a budding female writer said that though she had not read any of Margaret Ogola’s works as she loathed literature back in school, the feministic label was too harsh on the writer.

I posed the question: “How much of art is in the artist and how much of the artist is in the art?” Another literary enthusiast avowed that we shouldn’t judge artists by their works as some writings run parallel to writers’ life philosophies.

Reading David Maillu’s pop artworks such as After 4:30 and My Dear Bottle paint Maillu as a controversial writer yet this is the opposite of his actual priestly demeanour.

In The River and the Source, my favourite character is Becky. This shocked some participants. How is it even possible to fancy such a character from hell?

ELEPHANT

We later shifted to Ogola’s sequel to The River and the Source, I Swear by Apollo (2002). The elephant in the room changed to the place of sequels in literary creativity.

I Swear by Apollo is literally the next chapter after “Variable Winds” in Ogola’s first novel.

We argued whether she succeeded in penning the sequel or not. Ms Dindi affirmed that she would not wish to read a sequel and another writer posed a question: “What would one wish to read after the death of Becky in the novel? Reading a few excerpts from the paperback, it was evident that the artistic prowess of The River and the Source was still unparalleled.

The writer is a regular contributor on literary issues on Saturday Nation and teaches at Ng’iya Girls’ High School in Siaya County. [email protected]