Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
The death that claimed the life of Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye still pains my heart: Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, the Kenyan novelist, author of Coming to Birth, among other books. I always remember her well, not that I knew her personally, but I knew her through her writing.
Although death is the destiny of all humanity, Marjorie does not deserve to die. She is an uncelebrated female author, yet, her works and understanding of the African culture, particularly the Luo community of Kenya, were incredible. Nobody would have imagined that Marjorie was English-born, but her adoption of and dedication to the newly born country Kenya was enormous.
Marjorie's death was not announced well, a clear indication of African literary icons' ailing appreciation and recognition. I just learned about it a year ago when looking for information about her online. My heart wept.
"Coming to Birth" reminds me a lot about Marjorie. It was the set book I did in high school. I loved it; I loved its author. Coming to Birth talks about the struggles of a woman, Paulina Were, the novel's protagonist, in a new country born by gaining independence from Britain. It matches this woman's struggle, Paulina, with the challenges that the new nation faces under self-government.
Marjorie's ability to know her environment and stand with the people is what strikes me most about this novel. Marjorie bravely talks about these significant political occurrences in a hostile political environment characterized by arrests, detentions, and assassinations. She discusses the murder of Tom Mboya and, later, J.M. Kariuki, where she laments the new regime is " striking the best and the brightest."
She shows the irony in the country's poor governance when she mentions the mass killing of people in Kisumu by police officers, where Paulina's son, Martin Okeyo, a young boy less than ten, is also murdered. Marjorie writes that the country is "eating its people" to show there was no reason to fight for independence if the new regime acts like the colonialists by killing its people.
Coming to Birth is an expose of the poor governance that gripped most African countries, in its case, Kenya, following the achievement of independence. It condemns the corruption and autocracy that immediately engulfed post-colonial Africa.
Marjorie at her home in Nairobi
Unfortunately, today, the likes of Marjorie are no more. Marjorie and her peers like, Achebe, Thiongo, and Soyinka, exposed the evils of colonialism and the devils in the immediate dictatorial post-colonial Africa.
However, more than fifty years on, African universities are churning out ignorant literature students without a proper grasp of their environments. The corruption, tribalism, and inferiority complex bedeviling Africa today are as clear as a bright sunny day, but nobody talks about them.
When will we stop reading African literature on colonialism? When will we stop having the works of Achebe and Thiongo as set books for our students?
The education we give our children should be relevant to their environments. I do not oppose using the works of Achebe, Thiongo, and their peers. They are legendary works of literature. However, the fact that Africa is not producing contemporary pieces of literature proves a significant problem with our literature study.
The images of colonialism are fading fast away from our minds. This happening does not mean that our children should not be reminded of colonialism through the literature on colonialism. However, it is more important to inform them of the contemporary problems in their environments like Marjorie, Ngugi, Achebe, and their peers did during their time of colonial and post-colonial eras.
It is a fact that African literature has stagnated, as explained above, which makes the loss of legendary literary icons like Chinua Achebe and Marjorie Oludhe very painful. They were exemplary in telling the African stories of their time. With their deaths, we have no one to tell stories of our time.
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