My personal memories of generous Nyarloka

What you need to know:

  • My first acquaintance with her was in 1978, when she  attended the launch of my first book, a collection of short stories. The launch was attended by many writers, and was presided over by the then minister for Education,  Taaitta arap Toweet, himself a

  • poet and patron of the creative arts in Kenya.

When John Sibi-Okumu, my former class, school and college mate and an old friend and brother, called me on Tuesday evening  to inform me about the death of Kenyan writer Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, I was oddly not shocked.

Nor was I overwhelmed by that debilitating feeling of bereavement that incapacitates people on receiving such news. Instead, a vision of  Marjorie flashed through my mind, and I knew that the formidable lady, already immortalised by her works, could move on, perhaps, rest maybe, but certainly not die.

So what I said to John, a career teacher, thespian and acclaimed media personality, was spontaneous, unrehearsed, straight from the heart: “She has lived a full and incredibly productive life. Perhaps it is time for her to rest.”

After talking to John, I had a chat with Francis Ochieng, Macgoye’s second son, who was with him, and who is a music buff and teacher, and also a former student of mine.

“I hope you’ll be stoic about this matter,” I said, whereupon he quipped that things could not be otherwise, and I knew everything would be alright and that, as the old poet said, death would have no dominion at the Macgoyes’ home in Ngara, Nairobi.

Poignantly, Francis had been with his mother when I last met and spoke to her in Nairobi about two-and-a-half years ago, in April 2013.

Like my first meeting with her 37 years ago, that meeting was fortuitous, as I had no idea that I would bump into her at the Yaya Centre, where I had gone to arrange an impromptu interview with an ailing writer and poet, David Rubadiri.

The latter, who was visiting Kenya from his native Malawi, was surrounded by three generations of his family, including son Kwame, granddaughter Victoria Rubadiri and her daughter Neema, Rubadiri’s great granddaughter.

It was, however, old friend Rubadiri senior that Marjorie – as she was always to me – had also come to see. She herself looked hale and healthy despite the encroaching old age but, sadly, I did not have the opportunity to get into a proper chat with her.

Although we had been on first name terms for close to four decades, Marjorie was at the time headed for her mid-80s, easily old enough to be my mother. But that was Marjorie for you: affable, self-effacing, simple to a fault, gregarious and always

approachable.

A late starter in the literary world, once she began writing in earnest, she was extremely prolific and versatile, oscillating between prose, poetry and other genres with consummate ease, while retaining the humility that was her hallmark.

My first acquaintance with her was in 1978, when she  attended the launch of my first book, a collection of short stories. The launch was attended by many writers, and was presided over by the then minister for Education,  Taaitta arap Toweet, himself a

poet and patron of the creative arts in Kenya.

ENERGETIC AND EFFUSIVE

Marjorie was in her 50th year then, energetic and effusive but not yet firmly in the saddle of her literary career. Once begun, though, that career would see her, in the next few decades, emerging as the grand old lady of Kenyan literature, as she came to be

widely known, while being affectionately referred to as “Mom”.

Even before that formal meeting, as a literature student and teacher, I was of course familiar with her  magnum opus — the 1,200-line epic poem, ‘Song of Nyarloka,’ as well as the famous poem, ‘A Freedom Song.’ Later, among the books in her

distinguished oeuvre were works such as Coming to Birth (1986), The Present Moment (1987) and Homing In (1994).

In more recent times, she published a novel, A Farm Called Kishinev (2005). Other books by her are Chira, Street Life, Victoria and Murder in Majengo, with her latest one being Rebmann: A Novel, which was published only last year by New Academia

Publishers, Washington DC, and which was based on the life and times of Johannes Rebmann, a German who was one of the first Christian missionaries in East Africa.

Back to the readings in the 70s, at the time Marjorie was managing the famous SJ Moore Bookshop on Moi Avenue, formerly Government Road, where she invited me for a book signing session on a Saturday morning.

She also invited me to be attending the regular readings that took place there once a week. The readings brought together the cream of the Kenyan literary set, which then included Okot p’Bitek, Jonathan Kariara, Rubadiri and others.

I was familiar with the personalities I met at the readings, and I  remember socialising with some of them once in a while, age differences aside.

A case in point was when, determined to paint Nairobi totally red, Rubadiri, my kinsman Kariara,  Terry Hirst and I ended up at the famous Club 1900 on Waiyaki Way one evening.

Such was the affability that reigned among the creative fraternity of the time, unlike today.

Sadly, the new self-defined literary gurus have today, meeting in five-star hotels, swiftly appropriated the onus of judging literary prizes in the country, their dubious credentials notwithstanding, even as they tell us to hold tight for the masterpieces they are

themselves working on.

Fortunately, Marjorie earned her claim to immortality not only through her astonishing prolificacy, but through her mentoring of the young.

Eager, they routinely thronged her humble abode in Ngara seeking clues to the secrets of creative writing from a person who had mastered it and gone on to win applause all round.

Among the awards she won was the coveted Sinclair Prize for Fiction, which she bagged in 1986 with her debut novel, Coming to Birth, becoming the first African woman — albeit adopted through marriage — to win the prestigious prize.

Another novel, Homing In,  had won second place in the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1985. Coming to Birth, together with The Present Moment, was later published by the US-based Feminist Press, giving Marjorie a good break from the fetters and limitations of local publishing.

As for the meetings in Ngara, they were clearly reminiscent of the SJ Moore Bookshop readings, and were often attended by other writers, including Muthoni Likimani, who remains among a galaxy of formidable women writers like  Grace Ogot, Asenath

Bole Odaga and Margaret Ogola, all of whom I had the privilege to meet and write on at different times in their careers.

With the passing on of those great women writers, and now the lady we all knew as “Mom”, Kenya and the world are left with a great void that may never be filled.