CHINUA ACHEBE

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was born on November 16, 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria. His father, Isaiah Okafo, and his mother, Janet N. Achebe were both Christians.

Achebe attended Government College, Umuahia, from 1944 to 1947, before proceeding to the University College, Ibadan, where he studied in the period between 1948 and 1953. In the year 1953, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from London University and later, in 1956, he studied broadcasting at the British Broadcasting Corp. in London.

Achebe's earliest creative works include Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964).Later works include A Man of the People (1966), Anthills of the Savannah (1988) and The Trouble with Nigeria (1984).His most acclaimed works of poetry include Beware Soul Brother, and Other Poems (1971) and Christmas at Biafra, and Other Poems .

Achebe has also written works of literary criticism under such titles as Home and Exile (2000), Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975) and An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1988).His short stories have been have been published in publications such as Girls at War (1972) and The Sacrificial Egg and Other Stories (1962), while his children's stories are in titles such as The Drum (1978) and Chike and the River (1966).

 

MARJORIE OLUDHE MACGOYE

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye is one of the most prolific women writers, not only in Kenya but also in Africa, having distinguished herself as a writer of novels, poetry and children's stories. She was born in Southampton, England, in 1928, and came to Kenya as a missionary bookseller in 1954.She married D. G. W. Macgoye in 1960 and thus got integrated into her husband's Luo community of Western Kenya.

Her stunning historical novel, Coming to Birth (1986), which is currently a literature set book under the Kenya secondary school curriculum, won the Sinclair Prize for Fiction in 1986, while Homing In (1994) won second place in the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1995. In addition to these award-winning titles, other outstanding novels published by EAEP are The Present Moment (1987), Chira (1996) and Street Life ( 1987).Her latest novel, A Farm Called Kishinev (2005), explores the feeling of the period around 1905, when the British colonial government set aside a farm called Kishinev to resettle the victims of the Jewish holocaust. Her children's stories include The Black Hand Gang series (in three titles), among others.

 

FRANCIS IMBUGA

Francis Imbuga was born in 1947 in Maragoli, Western Kenya, where he received his primary and secondary education. He went to the University of Nairobi for both his undergraduate and master's degrees. He got his PhD from the University of Iowa, USA.

Imbuga started writing drama for television while still an undergraduate student at the University of Nairobi. In the 1970s, he travelled widely around the world to broaden his skills as a playwright and an actor. He taught Literature at Kenyatta University before going to Kigali Institute of Technology (KIST), in Rwanda.

Among his published plays are Game of Silence (1977), The Burning of Rags – initially Sons and Parents (1971) – The Successor (1979), Man of Kafira (1984), Betrayal in the City (1976) and Aminata (1988).The latter, which focuses on women's struggle for gender equity, was written for the United Nations Decade for Women conference held in Nairobi in 1985 and has been a successful literature set book in Kenya.

Professor Imbuga was the recipient of the inaugural Kenya National Academy of Sciences' Distinguished Professional Award for Play Writing in 1986.

 

NGUGI WA THIONG'O

Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born in Limuru (Central Kenya) in 1938, and is Kenya's most outstanding writer. He is well known as a novelist, playwright and literary critic with numerous published works in each category. He was educated at Makerere University (Uganda) and Leeds University (United Kingdom). He was editor of Penpoint and Zuka publications, and has taught in Universities in East Africa and abroad.

His first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), launched him into the African literary scene. The River Between (1965) and A Grain of Wheat (1967) followed. His later novels, Petals of Blood (1977) and Devil on the Cross (1980), had a strong impact around the world due to their powerful political message. It was the pre-publication staging of the play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (a Gikuyu version of I Will Marry When I Want ) at his birthplace that led to his detention without trial in December 1977.He was released in December 1978, after which he narrated his prison experience in his prison memoirs, Detained: A writer's Prison Diary.

Ngugi, who is currently the Director of Translations and Creative writing at California University, Irvine, recently launched the Gikuyu version of Murogi wa Kagogo , an epic novel that explores the theme of dictatorship in the Third World in the 20 th Century. The Gikuyu version of the book, which is in six volumes, is the biggest book in any African language in the world. The English version of Murogi wa Kagogo ( The Wizard of the Crow ) will be released by Pantheon (USA) in August, 2006.

 

GRACE OGOT

Grace Ogot is undoubtedly a prolific writer and one of the renowned women storytellers from Africa. Born in Western Kenya in 1930, she attended Ngiya High school and Butere Girls High School and thereafter trained as a nurse in Uganda and England. She has had a long public career, which culminated in the position of Assistant Minister in the Kenya Government in charge of Culture and Social services, a post she held for some time. She has also previously held such portfolios as Community Development Officer and Public relations Officer.

In addition, Ogot has held various Ambassadorial posts, representing her country at the United Nations and UNESCO. She was also a founding member of the Writers' Association of Kenya.

Her experience as a writer started with the writing of scripts for the British Broadcasting Corporation, a venture that thereafter gave birth to her extensive list of publications, most of which are published in the EAEP Peak Library series. They include, The Promised Land, The Other Woman, Land Without Thunder and The Strange Bride.