Margaret Ogola – Google Doodle Marks Kenyan Novelist’ 60th Birthday

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Margaret Ogola’s 60th Birthday who was a Kenyan novelist who composed The River and the Source and its sequel, I Swear by Apollo.

“This strength and support that is found in the African family is the most important part of our culture and should be preserved and nurtured at all costs.”

Margaret Ogola

Who is Margaret Ogola

Born on this day in 1958, Kenyan novelist, pediatrician, and human rights advocate Margaret Ogola graduated from the University of Nairobi, regulated more than 400 health centers in Kenya, worked with HIV-positive orphans, and furthermore composed the award-winning novel, The River and The Source.

Her literary debut centers around the lives of a few generations of Kenyan women, beginning in a prural 19th-century village and tracing the descendants of a matriarch named Akoko all the way to modern-day Nairobi. En route, the novel addresses political and cultural changes as well as the AIDS emergency, continually featuring the role of ladies in African society. In the wake of being rejected by different publishers, Margaret Ogola’s novel proceeded to win the 1995 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature and the 1995 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book.

“The inspiration for this book came from my mother,” said Dr. Margaret Ogola, “who handed down to me the wisdom and lives of her own mother and grandmother.” Highlighting the courage of African ladies in their regular day to day lives, Dr. Margaret Ogola’s book became required reading for many Kenyan secondary school students.

Notwithstanding composing two different novels, a biography, and a book on parenting, Dr. Margaret Ogola rehearsed at Kenyatta National Hospital and served as Medical Director of Cottolengo Hospice for HIV and Aids orphans. She was likewise the nation coordinator of the Hope for Africa Children Initiative, a partnership of NGOs including World Vision, CARE, Society for Women and AIDS, and Save the Children. In 1999, Dr. Margaret Ogola was honored with the Familias Award for Humanitarian Service of the World Congress of Families in Geneva, Switzerland.